


Connie Swap Episode 31: Knowledge and Power

by br42, BurdenKing, MjStudioArts



Series: Connie Swap [31]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Anxiety, Art, Deaf, Deaf Character, Drama, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Momswap, Pictures, Romance, Slice of Life, Steven Universe AU, connverse - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-19 06:06:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17595881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42, https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurdenKing/pseuds/BurdenKing, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MjStudioArts/pseuds/MjStudioArts
Summary: Hoping to arm themselves for Homeworld's return, Bismuth is leading Peridot, Jasper, and Lapis on a mission to the Ziggurat, Homeworld's unbroken fortress on Earth. Meanwhile, Wolf is taking Connie, Steven, and Doug to a secret location of Citrine's. What will the Crystal Gems face and what will the Destiny Partners uncover?





	1. Getting In

There was a kaleidoscope of color and speed, Connie and Steven screaming in excitement at the Wolf-based roller coaster they were riding.

Wolf, meanwhile, had his muzzle thrust forward, tongue out of his mouth and flapping in the breeze, the world's largest dog sticking his head out the world's strangest car window.

It was a long trip as Wolf-portals went. Certainly had the Beach City-to-Empire ride beat. Then, just as Connie was starting to get used to being inside a rainbow-as-tumble dryer, there was a blast of cold and a lurch, Wolf skidding to a stop like a drift-racing Dondai Supremo.

Mr. Universe liked to tell stories of his old car.

It was cold. And windy. Connie's breezy summer wear was utterly inadequate to the challenge and offered the piercing cold little resistance. The air was thin, Connie's ears complaining at the pressure difference and her lungs unhappy with the oxygen content. As she scrambled to pull her winter layers out of her pack, she worked her jaw, trying to pop her ears. Her already iffy hearing was further muted.

Steven, red-faced from cold and breathlessness, pinched his nose and puffed his cheeks out to equalize the pressure behind his ears. He retrieved a puffy coat and earmuffs from the folds of his novelty backpack, getting both in place quickly, breath fogging in the air.

He looked up at Connie and said something that she had no chance of hearing. To go by his lips, it was a remark on the cold. Winding a scarf around her exposed neck, Connie gave a quick nod and tried to withdraw into her clothing like a turtle into its shell.

Wolf's panting was fogging the air like a car's exhaust on a frozen day. He didn't seem particularly bothered by the cold and was radiating warmth; Connie and Steven had both gravitated closer to him as they'd added their layers.

Hypothermia forestalled, Connie was able to look around. There was one wall, smooth, flat, glinting dully where dust or grit didn't obscure the material underneath. Worked stone was above them and below but the other three walls were only open air, like a covered porch writ large. And cold. And windy.

Connie huddled up closer to Wolf and Steven both.

Looking out at the grand vista before them, there were peaks of stone piercing a sea of clouds. Yup, they were definitely on the side of a mountain, and a _tall_ one at that. A few gaps in the rapidly moving clouds below showed it was actually a mountain range and, very distantly Connie thought she saw ocean.

"Where are we?" yelled Steven from a few inches away from her, his voice only barely audible.

The sun was in roughly the same position in the sky as when they'd been in Beach City so they hadn't gone too far east or west. It was definitely winter here which meant southern hemisphere. Between the mountains and ocean... 

"Chile?" Connie shouted back. "Argentina? Somewhere in South America... I think."

Steven looked around then smiled at her. His mouth was obscured by the neck of his coat but Steven smiled with his entire face and it was clear as day to Connie.

Then he looked around once more and shout-said, "Is this the secret place?"

Wolf, a.k.a. their walking space heater, padded over to a rock resting near the middle of the stone landing and nudged it aside with a large paw. He lowered his head and emerged with an old rawhide bone in his mouth, the hound flopping down to give it a good chew.

A glance showed a bucket-sized hole in the floor loaded with assorted, old dog toys. Etched into the stone lip in expressive, flowing letters was the word 'Victory.'

"I think so," said Connie, a corner of her adding, _Or Wolf took us to his super-secret collection of squeak toys._

Steven walked over to the smooth wall and squinted at it, Connie a pace behind. It looked like glass or crystal caked with dirt. Using his forearm, Steven wiped a pizza-sized section clean. They both peered through it.

There was something inside, but it was unlit and the view was distorted as if they were looking through the wall of an aquarium. _Just how thick is this glass?_ wondered Connie.

Fishing a flashlight out of her pack, Connie shined it through the cleaned section and saw to her considerable surprise that the answer was, 'About ten feet thick,' making it roughly as deep as it was wide and tall. _That's... a really thick block of glass. Can glass be that thick without breaking? This is probably some kind of super space-glass then._

Beyond the slab of glass was a plain stone corridor that ran another twenty feet before ending in a turn.

Given the complete absence of any obvious door, Connie and Steven shared a look and then wordlessly began emulating their _Lutes and Loot_ characters, searching the area for hidden entrances or switches.

Ten frigid, wind-whipped minutes later and all they knew was that there was a single wall-sized cube of dirty glass _very_ firmly built into the surrounding stone.

Connie shout-said at Wolf, who was contentedly gnawing on a twenty-year-old chew toy, "Wooolf. How do we get in?" She stomped her feet and clutched her arms to her side in a vain attempt to warm up.

Wolf looked up from his aged geegaw at Connie. Then he nodded in the direction of the wall and went back to chewing.

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Connie signed at Steven, "[Can you go back and get my dad? I'm going to keep trying to figure this out while you do.]"

Steven nodded, signing back, "[Remember to have Carella check for traps,]" referring to her _Lutes and Loot_ character. He came over and gave her a peck on the cheek, then hurried over to Wolf, saying something to the hound while scratching him behind his ears.

Connie felt a little warmer after that.

By the time they returned, however, Connie was warmed only by frustration. Force fields, sword, electrical shock, and a very cold touch of her forehead to the glass all did nothing. She’d said Citrine's name aloud, her own, her dad's, every other Crystal Gem's, Rose Quartz', 'Open Sesame,' and 'Victory.'

Nothing.

She recited the oath of the Crystal Gems, then did it again while brandishing her sword. She'd even said 'Friend' because that had been the riddle to the sealed door in _The Hobbit_.

Nothing.

Noises of surprise came from behind as her dad gawked at the landscape. A squeak meant Wolf had resumed his mouth-first investigation of the toy trove. A Steven-shaped reflection, blurred almost beyond recognition in the dirty glass, gave Connie a moment's notice that her friend was coming over.

She sat, sword crackling in her hand, and continued to glare at the wall and brainstorm while her extremities complained of the cold.

Steven approached her from behind and wrapped his arms, encased in puffy winter wear, around her. Kissing the top of her head, he leaned against her warmly and asked, "Any luck?"

Right, her _boyfriend_ had approached her. Despite that being something she was almost always thinking about on some level, sometimes it still managed to surprise her.

There was another noise of surprise from her dad which Connie chose to attribute to vertigo or the cold and not to PDA.

Connie leaned into the puffy embrace, grateful for the warmth both physical and emotional. A moment's snuggle later, eyes still closed, she said, "No. As far as I can tell, there's a wall with a giant block of super glass anchored to it and that's it."

The wind howled, dark, curly hair whipping around Steven's head and tickling Connie's nose. She felt rather than heard the 'hmm' from Steven. He really was warm, she noted approvingly.

Steven said something which was lost in the wind and the fact that the ear with her sole hearing aid was snuggled into the crook of his arm. Shifting, Connie asked, "Huh?"

"Do you think maybe you can do your no-clip thing with the wall? Like you did through your force field when miss Lapis tried to water-kiss us?"

Connie shook her head. "I thought of that but I couldn't move all the way through, remember? And my ghost hands can't touch stuff even if the glass wasn't super thick, so it’s not like I could unlock it from the inside."

Besides, she'd been alone earlier and her colored perception power only worked with someone else around.

She felt Steven's shrug and, well, it's not like she had any better ideas. Plus, she wouldn't feel the wind while she was see-through. That definitely added to the appeal.

Reaching out in that indefinable way, she willed her power to-

A lot happened very quickly and it took Connie a couple of seconds to figure out what it was. 

First, for the briefest of moments she felt the world go quiet, the biting, winter wind of what might possibly be the Andes mountains vanishing. There was a trio of mindscapes available for her to perceive.

A split-second later Connie was being shoved forward. Hard. As she rolled in a scarcely controlled, headlong tumble across stone, a distant corner of Connie's mind appreciated the fact that she was see-through and therefore felt only the impressions of impacts. Impressions were way better than the alternative.

Finally, she toppled into the dirty glass of the wall, back flat on the ground, feet overhead. She could see, upside-down, that Steven had toppled forward, belly flopping on the hard stone below. Unlike her, he looked like he felt _all_ of his landing. At least he was cushy, in terms of clothing and build.

Wolf and her dad, meanwhile, had turned and were staring at them, a dropped chew toy rolling away with the wind until her dad stopped it with his foot.

Her sword was dissolving to motes of light beside her toppled boyfriend, the hilt having slid through her hands when she'd used her power.

Connie blinked, as did Steven. "[I should probably not go see-through when you're leaning on me,]" she signed, adding a nose wiggle so he knew she was okay.

Steven reached out and wiggled his nose back, then took her dad’s hand helping him up. Her dad started to offer her a hand as well before realizing the futility of the act. Connie got up herself, the whole thing made weird because she could lean against the ground or the wall for support but not her own limbs. She shot her dad a grateful smile all the same.

"[Who knew ghost-hugs were so dangerous?]" signed Steven. Then, spending a moment to dust himself off, he added, "[Can you go through the glass?]"

Connie turned and rapped on the dirty wall, finding it the same nondescript hard-as-concrete texture that everything else had when she was like this. She walked a few more paces and tried again, leaning hard against the wall but found the dusty surface impenetrable. Then she reached the section where Steven had wiped it clean.

Her hand passed through without resistance.

Moving carefully, she leaned forward, thrusting the upper half of her body through, gemstone included. Even though she could see through her eyelids, her eyes went wide and she made an 'o' with her mouth, giving her dad and Steven a _'Did you just see that?'_ look after she pulled herself back out.

 _It has to be transparent, I guess, though I have no idea why my gemstone went through this and not my force field,_ she thought while Steven cheered and her dad looked pleased but abstracted. Wolf was content to pick up his wayward toy and get back to chewing. _This power is really weird,_ she added for the nth time that day.

Seeing just how red her dad and Steven's noses were getting from the cold, Connie shoved those questions aside and turned back to the 'window' of clean glass. She stepped through carefully and soon found herself inside the solid block of very solid glass.

Connie made absolutely sure she focused on her power so she didn't turn back to normal here. That she got to see Steven's hopeful excitement in brilliant shades of color was an added perk.

Stepping out the back of the glass wall, Connie was left in a dimly lit corridor. She didn't glow when she was ghostly and her hand went right through her hip when she tried to reach for the phone in her pocket. Her pack with flashlight hadn’t turned insubstantial like she had and was outside. She tried to summon her sword, gemstone lighting up as she felt a flare of righteous indignation within, but she was unable to actually pull the weapon free and her gemstone soon went dark once more.

She really needed to learn how to do that thing Jasper and Peridot did to make their gems double as a flashlight.

Connie walked down to the turn and stepped a few paces into complete darkness. This reduced the world to just the muted sensation of ground under her feet and that was entirely too unnerving for Connie. She retreated back to the dim light before she got lost or eaten by a grue.

A little while later the sensations of the world returned.

The lights came on, a sunny yellow that left Connie blinking in the sudden brightness. It wasn't exactly warm inside... whatever this place was, but it was a lot nicer than outside. Visible as a distant silhouette, Connie saw Steven waving at her through the cleaned portion of glass. Her dad, using a tissue, began cleaning another window in the grime. Then he and Steven both backed away and it looked like a yellow version of Mr. Universe's car wash as Wolf used his bulk to squeegee the bottom five feet of the wall clear.

Steven and her dad waved at Connie. Connie waved back. Fishing her phone out she found, unsurprisingly, there was a lack of cell phone service inside a hidden cave atop a mountain range. Between that and the conspicuous absence of door knobs on this side of the glass, Connie signed back, "[I don't see a way to open the wall so ask Wolf if he can portal you guys in.]"

An unheard exchange later Steven signed back, "[Wolf isn't acting like he can. Maybe you can explore and find a side door? Oh! Or maybe there's a giant, yellow doggie door we could all go through.]"

Connie signed her agreement, adding, "[I'll hurry, I promise.]"

As Connie waved goodbye and jogged around the corner, it started to catch up to her just where she was. Well, she didn't actually know _where_ she was in the specific or in the geographical sense, but what was undeniably true was that this was a secret place _of her mom's._ And unlike the disappointment that had been her mom's room in the temple, there really had been a secret puzzle to lead Connie here.

She felt practically giddy with excitement as she jogged ahead.

* * *

There was dry scrub land pockmarked by blast craters; craters that grew more numerous with proximity to the structure that dominated the otherwise featureless landscape. Peridot wasn't usually given to figurative language or anthropomorphization, but the Ziggurat --a great, dark shape that speared up into an overcast sky-- _loomed_ menacingly.

She'd had a supervisor once with a penchant for the same, but said supervisor hadn't been a heavily armed edifice so the impact had been comparatively less.

Standing beside her and looming by dint of being an Era-1 Bismuth was Bismuth. "Call me cracked but I'm proud the Ziggurat has held up so well."

For no adequately explained reason, she then stomped a large foot against the baked soil.

Peridot blinked her vision spheres and looked at her fellow engineer. "Did you assist in the fortresses' construction? Because if so, I have some questions about the interior as-"

Bismuth waved her quiet and shook her head. "No, that wasn't me. But after Alloy unbubbled me I took that tour of Earth with Blue and saw all the old places. Most of them are falling apart. Makes me a little sad, as a Bismuth and as someone who was a couple thousand years in the past eight weeks ago."

A bird of indeterminate species flew overhead. One of the cannons along the battlements tracked it but didn't fire, and the avian took a wide route around the Ziggurat's airspace.

Millennia was long enough for life on Earth to adapt.

As much to head off the images of energetic obliteration coming from a roused Homeworld as to gain useful intel, Peridot addressed Bismuth. "As a gem with recent memories of this structure, is there anything of significance you can report about it?"

Bismuth looked at the Ziggurat for another long second and stomped her feet twice before facing Peridot. "There's an old anti-asteroid system Pink Diamond put up, the controls of which are in that building. Yellow had the bright idea to use it to shoot Homeworld out of the sky instead; we didn't have Raindrop to scare their fliers back then,” explained Bismuth, gesturing skyward. “Citrine did her usual thing for taking out a Homeworld hard point: have some of ours infiltrate, sabotage the defenses, draw Homeworld forces away with a feint, then capture or destroy the target before they knew what hit them."

Peridot nodded along. That was in-keeping with what she'd heard as well.

"The Onyx that ran the place was sharp; Pink Diamond's main general. Weird one, though. She'd take in Pearls: defective ones, cracked ones, ones their owners didn't want anymore. Had scads of them; I heard, before the war, they'd hold these big parties for the upper crusts. Balls and the like. Even had Pink Diamond attend a few." Bismuth turned and looked at the warp pad a few paces behind them, as if to confirm the others hadn't snuck over somehow. None were there save the pile of assorted tools Bismuth had insisted they bring along.

Peridot had heard these details about the Onyx in question, though she'd attributed them salacious gossip and paid them little mind. That a Homeworld gem in high-standing would engage in such aberrant behavior seemed implausible.

Crouching down, the smith shapeshifted her hand into a hammer and struck the soil. She paused for a moment as if waiting for something to happen, then resumed her report. "Whatever the case, the general's tricks didn't work. Ever. Infiltration failed more often than it succeeded and the spies would vanish the second they tried something. Even though Homeworld was willing to jump at the General's feints, the Ziggurat was too well-defended for us to seize it in a hurry. If it had just been us and the fortress then we'd have won eventually but Homeworld sure as schist wasn't about to give us a few weeks to crack this place open."

Bismuth picked up a large stone and gave it an under-armed throw. The rock was destroyed by light cannon blast before it could even reach the apogee of its arc.

"And there's too many guns for Malachite to show up and just break it in half. She's not exactly stealthy," elaborated the smith. "Or a small target." Bismuth shook her head, her voice taking on a quieter but somehow harsher tone. "It’s a place so nasty Yellow could lie about me getting taken down here and no one thought twice about it."

Not having a clear idea of how to respond, Peridot instead checked her warp network logs. No new irregular activity and she saw that Jasper had warped to Beach City some minutes prior. Presumably she would be retrieving Lapis and the two would be joining them shortly.

Banishing her display, Peridot turned so the unsettling structure wasn't in her peripheral vision. She said to the Era-1, "Thank you for your report. I do have some additional intel that might prove elucidating, compiled from post-war intel and a battery of scans I performed." A beat later adding, "From behind cover and at a considerable distance, of course.

Bismuth smiled. "Smart, Green."

"Thank you." Peridot preened a little before elaborating in earnest. "The Ziggurat was designed to be accessed via warp. Contained near the center of it is a heavily fortified warp pad intended to handle authorized traffic. However, this was either destroyed or disconnected from the warp network because it is utterly inaccessible. Within the inner core of the fortress are the rooms of importance: the control center, vital infrastructure, the armory, and the like. But the outer layers of the Ziggurat are hardened fortifications meant to repel invasion, including-"

The sound of a warp pad's chime interrupted the report.

“Hey you uncivil engineers,” drawled Lapis as she winged up and over. In the distance a trio of light cannons detected the aerial movement and tracked, prepared to fire if she drew close enough. “I’ve got a thirsty rainbow waitin’ on me, so let’s be quick.” She jammed a thumb over her shoulder in Jasper’s direction. “OJ wasn’t big on the details about why we’re _here_ of all places.”

“Curious myself,” said the reticent Quartz as she walked up beside Lapis. Without taking her gaze away from the enemy fortress, she said in Peridot’s general direction, “Good to see you in the field again.”

Peridot shifted uncomfortably. “I wouldn’t exactly call this a return to previous behavioral norms. More a consequence of extenuating circumstances.”

“Green detected Homeworld snooping around,” said Bismuth, thick arms crossed.

 _That_ garnered their attention.

“Ahem, yes, well,” began Peridot but the gem floundered. When she allowed herself to contemplate the enormity of the situation they were in, adequately gauging the magnitude of their predicament kept drawing in more and more of Peridot’s mental resources like a runaway computation. It was a doom best expressed via exponents or plaintive wailing.

Bismuth filled the conversational void. “Our girl here set up an ambush at the Galaxy Warp but before we could spring it, Nova and another Peridot show up, talk about reactivating something, then Nova smells trouble and they warped back off-world in a hurry.”

“Wait,” asked Lapis, “do you mean the Novaculite who was a killer shot or the one with the hot butt?”

Jasper’s fists clenched.

“Fine-foundationed Nova, not keen-eyed Culi,” clarified Bismuth.

Jasper’s teeth clenched too.

“Seriously? That’s both better and worse for us,” started Lapis.

“If you’re postulating about the positives of her posterior, Lapis, then-” sputtered Peridot petulantly.

The blue gem chuckled and shook her head. “I’m talking about not getting nailed to the sky, you dweeb. Nova was… _Is_ a crap shot. Still,” Lapis sighed and shook her head, “that Amethyst and Pearl must have made it to Homeworld and blabbed after all. Girlie’s gonna be all beat up about that.” A pause. “If she ever moves home again.”

“None of that matters now,” said Jasper brusquely, taking a step forward. A distant cannon panned in her direction. “What’s the plan?”

“I smashed the Galaxy Warp and good,” said Bismuth, pounding the ground with both shapeshifted fists for emphasis. “And Green here set up alarms around the place.”

“Less proximity-based alarms and more automatic alerts should anyone attempt to warp to or away from that location. Likewise for unregistered warp activity of any kind.”

Bismuth nodded. “Yeah, so Homeworld isn’t going to be using that anytime soon. Which means, now we make sure the only way they do come to Earth is as molten slag.” 

“The space cannons?” asked Jasper.

“Yes, Bismuth is proposing we co-opt that orbital array and use it to intercept any incoming Homeworld warships,” elaborated Peridot. “A plan which presupposes many things, such as the array’s continued function, the controls still being housed in the Ziggurat, and that said controls can be attained and subverted by the four of us in time before Homeworld’s imminent arrival.”

“Also, that we can even get in there,” quipped Lapis, the gem coaxing water out of a canteen on her hip and watching as a panoply of light cannons tracked the movement of several hovering spheres of water.

Bismuth’s smile was broad indeed. “Naw, that’s the simple part, Blue. We just dig over and come in from below.”

Jasper shook her head. “Tried it. There’s defenses down there too. Even Biggs couldn’t tunnel us in.”

Bismuth waved the objection aside and, somehow, grinned wider. “Yeah, but we would have been blown up six different times already if their seismic sensors were still working.” 

She gestured around at their lack of a grisly demise. Then paced over to the tools beside the warp pad, picked up shovels and picks, and tossed them to the others. 

Shapeshifting her hands into large scoops, she said, “Let’s get digging.”


	2. Exploration

The corridors and ceilings were ten feet wide with machined precision, like a _Lutes and Loot_ dungeon sprung complete from Peedee's graph paper. There was a fine layer of dust covering the place, Connie's footprints the only ones visible. Then Connie came to a kind of foyer with three paths branching off it: left, straight, and right.

Lacking any signs or maps she followed the left-hand rule, taking the left branch. It worked for mazes, after all, though hopefully Connie wouldn’t encounter any minotaurs here.

Following the corridor probably twenty feet the passage opened up and she found herself in a laboratory: rows of metal tables and stone shelves with equipment scattered semi-neatly across a large, rectangular space, all partitioned by low walls.

With Peridot as a guardian, Connie was no stranger to labs and there was something in the placement of equipment which to Connie screamed 'amateur.' There was an order to Peridot's lab --two parts aggressive utility to one part aesthetics-- that was lacking here, like the person had been figuring things out as they went.

Even Pearl's barn-lab, filled with soda bottle-flasks and cans of Sterno in lieu of Bunsen burners, had an air of ordered competence to it that this lab lacked.

One station was dedicated to fractals. Old sheets of paper showed what looked like the early attempts at drawing Wolf's mindscape for Connie's clue.

Another station had an elaborate chemistry set, like something out of a movie except no liquids were bubbling or changing color while traveling through long glass tubing. A lab when the mad scientist was on vacation, maybe?

Another was dedicated to geology, with maps pinned to the walls while a layered model of the Earth in exquisite detail dominated the table space.

One partition, dustier than most, had bits of grey hair or fur scattered about. There were empty pink vials on the table and a basketball-sized glass globe, the latter of which had an oily, black, tar-like residue caking the bottom.

One table had packs of Twinkies, a few test tubes, and some litmus strips. There was a short note visible under a patina of dust. Written in flowing script it just had her dad's name, a date from a few years before she'd been born, and the word, 'Liquor?'

Connie had to remind herself she was looking for another entrance; puzzling over mysterious details would have to wait until later. Surveying the space one last time, she walked back to the foyer then trekked down the middle passage.

The first thing she noticed was the braying of a dot matrix printer, something which was so at odds with Connie's expectations that she had to take out and fiddle with her hearing aid just to be sure she'd heard it right. Then she came to a room dominated by a table and chair, both built to scale for a gem Citrine's size.

Along an adjacent wall were three terminals, obviously gemtech. One was unlit and inert. Another flickered sporadically, the display garbled and showing gibberish. The third looked functional and was the source of the noise. Connected to the terminal by a long cable, a printer was droning, a chain of tractor feed paper extending from it to a slot in the wall. Peering through the slot, Connie could make out a horizontal slice of what she eventually realized was an automated bookbinding station. Where the paper was coming _from_ remained a mystery.

While the terminal was old Era-1 tech, the printer and beyond was very obviously Peridot's craftsmanship. Connie made a mental note to ask her about this sooner rather than later.

Past the terminals was a room that made Connie go a little weak in the knees. Far as the eye could see were floor-to-ceiling shelves of books and heavy-duty filing cabinets. These were arranged in rows that stretched impressively far: the mother of all libraries. Literally, for Connie.

Connie hustled over to the nearest shelf and looked at the spines, the books all with an identical, rugged grey binding with machine-printed letters. The first spine she read said, _'Zircon: Intelligence Reports 3315.2-3315.6 BCE'_ and below that, _'Zircon: Possible Sympathizers (Amethysts and Carnelians)'._

Connie had heard of a rebel Zircon in Lapis, Jasper, and Bismuth's stories, but mainly regarding the gem's betting pools rather than her part within the Rebellion intelligence apparatus.

Unwilling to simply walk away from this trove, and sparing a mental apology to Steven and her dad who were freezing outside, Connie jogged around the archive's perimeter.

Probably the back third of the archive was empty, and Connie thought she saw a robonoid-like figure shelving at one point, but there weren't any other rooms and there definitely wasn't another way in. 

She was no stranger to running and the air inside wasn’t thin like outdoors, but Connie was breathing heavily, her calves burning by the end. It was like running the circumference of a bulk retail store like a Sam's Club or a Buy 'N Large.

Remembering her earlier sprint to her dad’s apartment and how her colored perception power had helped with the fatigue, Connie stepped into the reading room and reached out with her power. The good news was that the exhaustion ceased to matter when she went see-through. The bad news was that the lights shut off all at once. Connie had to loiter in the dim glow of the terminals until she returned to normal and the lights came back on.

Her legs ached a little --the exhaustion returning though diminished-- as she entered the foyer and crossed to the right-most corridor.

The room was large and open, like the lab but without any partitions. Along one wall was a looong table covered in numerous maps, all thick with dust. Tiny gem-shaped figurines were strewn about, along with miniature forts and warp pads. Connie's mind first went to some kind of elaborate board game but then it clicked: this was where her mom had planned strategies for the Rebellion!

Judging from the old scrapes in the floor, the disarray of the table's contents, and the fact that everything was shoved up against the wall, it looked like her mom had roughly pushed everything out of the way at some point and left it there.

What drew the eye instead was a corner decorated into a reading nook. Much homier than the archive had been, there was a lamp and a rug, as well as a matching set of teak furniture: chair, end table, two bookcases, and a yellowish-brown ottoman. All sized for Citrine, of course.

Piled high on the end table were books. Normal, human books. _1001 Baby Names_ , _What to Expect When You're Expecting_ , Gray's _Anatomy_ , and so on. There was a stand with something rolled up at the bottom which, when Connie unfurled it, proved to be a full-sized anatomical chart of a woman. The rolls lying on the floor nearby showed the same, but the woman was in progressively later stages of pregnancy.

And sitting in the lap of the big, teak reading chair was a book, a large and sturdy-looking leather bound thing that read in expressive yellow letters, ‘Rose Quartz.’

There were faint scratches in the cover as one might get from it being pawed at or held in the jaws of a large animal. There was even a faint dusting of yellow dog hair. All of that Connie might have been willing to chalk up to innocent proximity, a consequence of her pulling the book out of Wolf's pocket dimension two months ago.

But the large paw-shaped disturbances in the dust allowed for no such excuse.

Hands clenched into fists, sparks sizzling between her knuckles, Connie shouted, "WOOOLF!" the cry echoing off the walls.

The bellow was soon joined by a sound like a howl at the end of a tunnel, a portal opening up in the large, open space where the war table once stood. It wasn't possible to slink out of a howl-portal, but that didn't stop Wolf from trying.

 _Okay, so apparently I can summon Wolf,_ a distant corner thought, the sole voice of calm in an ocean of bibliophilic rage. _That explains some of the convenient saves from earlier missions. And the ride back from Empire City._

But what Connie said, drawing herself up to her full height and loading the words with as much displeasure as she could, was, "Bad dog!"

Wolf's expression crumpled into canine self-reproach, the large yellow definition of 'a hangdog look.'

Storming over to the furry betrayer, Connie said, "You _stole_ mom's Rose book and hid it here! And you can too warp into mom's secret base-thingy!"

The car-sized hound tried to look small before Connie’s dressing-down.

Fires of indignation still burning, she pointed in the direction of the glass block entrance, beyond which a very cold and confused Steven and Doug no doubt waited. "You go and bring them in here _this instant!"_

Wolf was through the portal so fast he kicked up a great big cloud of dust that swirled through the room making Connie's eyes water.

Connie reached out with her power and became insubstantial, glowering at Wolf's shame while she waited for the others.

* * *

With a final, resounding _clang_ , the wall was breached, a fist-sized opening made into the Ziggurat's exterior. Well, inasmuch as a portion normally buried under three meters of soil could be called 'exterior.'

Peridot hustled back a little in the crowded tunnel so that Jasper, who gave Bismuth a satisfied nod, could step back from where she'd punched through. Peridot used the opportunity to begin a scan of the space beyond.

Shifting her forearms into sharpened hooks, Bismuth set to widening the opening further, metallo-ceramic material groaning as she worked.

Filtering out the sounds of distressed materials, Peridot found there was a faint hum coming from within the structure. Three of them in fact, if her scans were to be believed. She couldn’t think of a ready explanation for what it would be. The noise, however, was almost too soft to be heard and Peridot decided to wait for better data.

Lapis, blue skin dusted liberally with brown from the excavation, began to whistle a tune that, according to readings, was in harmony with the tripartite noise within. The gem directed water into the telescoping hammer she'd kept clipped at her beltline.

"I'm surprised to find you so ebullient about this endeavor," remarked Peridot, gaze straying from her readings. "Normally you're averse to manual labor or subterranean conditions."

Lapis' pigtails swept her shoulders clean as she swiveled around to face Peridot. _An intentional feature or just a practical perk to her aesthetic choice?_ pondered the green gem.

"This place was where those Homeworld dum-dums first figured out that Moissanite guards make me a sad gal. Turned my big ol' water fist into a big ol' puddle." The hydro-hammer popped into its full form, gravity-defying water filling it. "I'm glad for a little mallet-shaped karma."

Given that Jasper's gemstone was shedding light to illuminate their surroundings, it was obvious when the Quartz took an interest in their conversation.

Using her sleeves to buff the metal mallet’s surface, Lapis asked, "You got a score to settle with this place too, OJ?"

The Quartz shook her head, light in the tunnel dancing as she did. "No more than any rebel. Just excited for a dungeon crawl. Samwise is still petrified so it's been a while."

Technician and hydrokinetic shared look of bewilderment. Lapis started to reply when Jasper added with a faint smile, "The Ziggurat even looks like Barad-dûr." The blue gem just shook her head and let the subject drop.

With a final wrenching sound Bismuth stepped to one side of the tunnel, gesturing proudly to a jagged but far wider opening. "Alright ladies, the impenetrable fortress has officially been penetrated."

Lapis snickered. Peridot elbowed her, trying not to get swept up in the other's zeal and only partially succeeding.

Jasper, nose aglow, was the first one through, serious, wary, but with a pleased air accompanying her vigilance. Bismuth followed, then Lapis, and finally Peridot, taking pains to keep her limb enhancers clear of the jagged metallo-ceramic edges.

The corridor was ten feet wide and ten feet tall, with numerous and varied shapes decorating all visible surfaces. If there was any underlying pattern or meaning beyond 'geometric hodge podge' it was beyond Peridot's ability to grasp. The materials used in the Ziggurat's construction made scanning difficult, especially, Peridot grumbled to herself, with only a single viable limb enhancer with which to scan.

When absolutely nothing assaulted them, Jasper looked in the direction of the others, taking care not to blind anyone with her lit up gemstone. "Which way?"

Lapis looked at Bismuth who looked at Peridot. Peridot blinked her vision spheres, feeling put on the spot. "In the absence of any more sophisticated guiding principle, I suggest we choose a direction which leads us steadily inward. It will simplify navigating."

Lapis flipped her hydro-hammer around, the head wedged against a bit of floor decoration to prop herself up. "So... we go left?"

"Erm, yes."

With that the others proceeded down the corridor, Peridot hustling to keep pace, limb enhancer extended outward and scanning. The tone from earlier was coming through clearer on her readings and she still had no solid theories as to the source.

At one point Jasper stepped on a part of the floor mosaic which depressed from the force of her footfall. There was a rattling in a ceiling panel followed by a light rain of granules.

"What was that?" asked Bismuth.

"It would appear the mechanism for this deadfall has not aged especially well."

This brought on a laugh from the Era-1 smith. Jasper, meanwhile, looked vaguely disappointed.

Just as Peridot received a holographic alert from her combination sonar-and-lidar sweep, Lapis cocked her head to the side, raising one pigtail up and listening.

"I am detecting movement in our direction." // "Do you gals hear that?" Peridot and Lapis said over one another.

The sound swelled to full audibility. It was a kind of sonorous crooning that, Peridot was forced to concede, was aesthetically pleasing as mysterious hums went.

The quartet advanced slowly until Peridot called for a halt, blips appearing on her HUD as the figures closed to visual range. The croon grew louder with the approach, though still quiet enough to speak over.

A bipedal avian form stepped into the light. It was long-legged and tall, matted peach-colored with a gemstone to match set in its forehead. A moment later another entered the edge of their vision, predominantly lavender in coloration and significantly smaller. A black one, between the two in size, rounded out the trio, one wing visibly shorter than the other.

"Are those... Pearls?" asked Bismuth, voice raised to be better heard over the birdsong.

"I guess that Onyx didn't take her collection with her when Homeworld evacuated," observed Lapis. She used the mallet to scratch the back of her neck as she stepped lightly forward. "Once you get past the light cannons, this place is all sizzle and no steak."

Bismuth leaned forward, one hand outstretched in a beckoning gesture. She advanced slowly, her other hand behind her back and shifted into a menacing bladed form. "Come here little gal," the smith said in a singsong voice.

Just as the smith was approaching the corrupted lavender gem, the floor opened beneath her, Bismuth dropping out of sight as a roar of flame shot upward.

Jasper reacted in an instant, lunging forward... into a deadfall that was fully functional, a heavy pillar knocking the Quartz to her knees inches from the central Pearl.

"Oh no you don't," shouted Lapis. "Unlike those dorks, I can fly!" Winging over swiftly, mallet upraised, Lapis swooped at the black Pearl... who leapt up and walloped Lapis with a vicious kick to the midsection. That one of its wings was stunted in no way impeded the graceful-yet-vicious takedown.

The blue gem, too stunned to arrest her fall, shot straight down. This triggered another deadfall, which Peridot caught via her tractor beam before it could complete the drop.

She was about to drop it aside but was suddenly fearful of triggering still more pressure plates, instead hovering the pillar over and around the group to what she hoped was a safe distance.

The crooning not only didn't falter but seemed to grow louder. For Peridot it made strategizing difficult, an aural bowling ball colliding with her thoughts.

Jasper shook herself free of the rubble and reached out. The Pearl trio retreated backwards but not directly. Instead, their long legs stepped gracefully along a complicated route that put distance between them and their foe.

The Quartz, helmet summoned, tried to chase. First she triggered a deadfall, but the pillar fell only a foot before grinding to a halt, stuck by faulty mechanisms. Then another pillar fell from the ceiling, this one successfully, though Jasper rolled out of the way… and directly into a pit trap. Though the trap’s burst of flame was an anemic puff of smoke, it was still adequate in halting Jasper's advance, the Pearls making their dancing retreat back and out of sight, their song echoing off the walls.

"The corrupted Pearls follow a path around the traps!" exclaimed Peridot, her thoughts deducing as much despite the aural interference. She swiveled around, "Bismuth! The-" She noticed she was addressing a flame-licked opening instead of her fellow engineer.

A soot-blackened hand appeared at the drop beside her. Bismuth hauled herself out of the pit, charred but none the worse for it. "You say something to me, Green?" She smirked as she rose to her feet and patted a lingering flame out. "Because I'm pretty sure my ears were burning."

Lapis winged over, a conspicuous claw-print visible on the chest of her outfit. "Go back down there and get yourself a better sense of humor, Skittles."

"Hey, I'm not the one that got clobbered by an oversized feather duster," Bismuth retorted.

Jasper, free from her own pit, jogged over. Contrary to all expectations, she was smiling. "Dungeon crawl!" she cheered. 

Peridot frowned, uncertain of her peers, all while the crooning continued.

* * *

Her dad had actually brought a canteen full of lemonade. Between that and Steven acting as mediator between her and Wolf, it came out that Wolf wasn't entirely as much of a bad dog as originally thought.

Though Connie was still sore about it.

Wolf, they found out, wasn't normally supposed to enter the base, instead hanging out at what amounted to the porch while Citrine worked within. He had, however, been instructed by Citrine to return the book here. Being unable to access his own pocket dimension meant he'd had to wait until Connie took it out in the first place.

Steven was quite good at the magical dog-version of Twenty Questions, it turned out.

As for why Citrine hadn't returned it herself, that was something Connie's dad had been able to answer, or at least speculate convincingly on.

Connie had been born two weeks early. This wasn’t unusual for a normal, human pregnancy but entering labor ahead of schedule had caught Citrine off guard. Doug mentioned how worried she'd been about things left undone, but when he'd said that babies, not parents, choose when they were born, that seemed to comfort her.

Connie's dad had trailed off after that, pausing to take a swig of lemonade for himself.

Girl and magical animal companion mostly reconciled, Steven and Doug had gone off to gawk and marvel at the surroundings. Wolf vanished into a portal and then reappeared, five different chew toys held in his jaws. He let them spill across the floor and then picked up one and gave it a squeak. Then he looked over at Connie guiltily and chose a quieter toy instead.

Connie waved the others on and gave Wolf a half-smile, the sting of betrayal fading. Then, as if pulled by a gravitational force only she could feel, she found herself drifting steadily over to the large, teak reading chair.

Picking the book up carefully, she sat down and studied the cover, fingers tracing over the expressive yellow writing of the title.

 _Rose Quartz_.

Feeling like she was standing on the precipice of something large, Connie lingered a little, not so much fearful of the plunge she was about to take as merely recognizing the gravity of the moment.

There was destiny in this book.

A while later Steven jogged back around the corner. "Hey Connie! Your dad found some notes about corrupted gem people in that big archive room and-" He went quiet and approached slowly, his hand eventually going to Connie's shoulder in a wordless show of support.

Connie was still staring at the first page of the journal, the first three paragraphs even, her eyes misting up. Her chest felt fit to burst, and she was genuinely unsure if it was from happiness or sadness.

> _My dear Connie, it is with very mixed emotions that I write this to you. I burn with curiosity to know who you are, who you will become, and in this I can reach out to you._
> 
> _But if you are reading this then it means some of my decisions, some of my burdens, will likely fall to you. They may have already. Your life and your choices should be your own. If I could give you only one thing, it would be that: the freedom to choose._
> 
> _So, mixed up that I am, let me say what is clear. I love you, Connie, even though I have never and will never meet you. I love you and, for what you're about to read, I am sorry._

__

__

Connie sniffled and leaned into Steven's arm, reading yet again the first words, first _anything_ that mother had ever conveyed to daughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The promo and art was drawn by MJStudioArts.
> 
> We'll see you Wednesday, February 6th for the next exciting installment of _Knowledge and Power!_
> 
> On the subject of the art, those corrupted Pearls have been waiting in the wings for a while. The thing is, MJ did a wonderful drawing of the Pearls before being corrupted in addition to the one above. I kind of before-and-after that I'm quite keen to share.  
>   
> And for comparison we have:  
>   
> You should note that Matte Peach is quite tall for a Pearl, Lavender is quite small, and Black's right hand ends at the elbow. Fortunately, all found a home in the Ziggurat with Onyx, if Bismuth's gossip is to be believed. There's also a doodle MJ did of an older design, back when the corrupted Pearls were more peacock-like instead of their current secretary bird-form:  
>   
> EDIT: MJ wanted me to add that the poses were inspired by [this great piece of fan art](http://andernell.tumblr.com/post/117709067913/wanted-to-practice-some-gesture-stuff-which) by Andernell, whose Tumblr page [can be found here](http://andernell.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Also, there's an episode bingo card, created by the ever-excellent [BinaryGeek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BinaryGeek/pseuds/BinaryGeek) from speculation within the Connie Swap Discord with only the episode's title and summary for guidance. I see six boxes that I'd count as filled already!  
> 
> 
> There's also one omake to note since the conclusion of Ep30:
> 
> *) [Peridot’s What-If Machine: What if Rose Quartz had won the Schism?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12265302/chapters/41261573) by [br42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42) \- "Garnet asks a heavy question." Contains some hitherto unconfirmed plot details; is as canonical as a What-If can be.
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.
> 
> Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. [Come check it out.](https://discord.gg/RQMDdhr)
> 
> As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the [Connie Swap Tumblr](http://connieswap.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!


	3. Going Deeper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After you finish reading this chapter, there is a related omake you might want to check out:  
> [Caught Off Balance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673391/chapters/33712806) by [br42](http://archiveofourown.org/users/br42/pseuds/br42) \- "Everyone knew that Rose and Citrine, leaders of the Rebellion, argued over strategy but Obsidian never expected anything to come of it." **This fic is 100% canon.**

> _Some of this may not make sense to you and I'm sorry at my own inadequate tale... But let me start at the beginning._
> 
> _Humans are marvelous in their creativity; a thousand words and phrases arising as they try again and again to find the perfect one for what they mean. Watching them live and choose and try has been endlessly fascinating. And from them, I've found the name for a concept that I've felt since I emerged but had never been able to properly name:_
> 
> _Rose Quartz was my soul mate._
> 
> _The day I emerged from my hole in the Kindergarten, I was met by a gentle voice and soft hands to brush the dust from my form. Rose smiled and said she had been waiting for me. Waiting and excited because we lived on a glorious planet called Earth and she, gem glowing with anticipation, dearly wanted to show me its wonders. And wondrous it was --I treasure the Earth with my every facet-- but it was Rose Quartz that dazzled me the most._
> 
> _Our former Diamond was clever, ambitious and she planned to make her first colony a marvel to someday eclipse even Homeworld. This marvel would include gems like no other, nearer to the Diamonds than any gems to come before._
> 
> _It should have been impossible: the only gem that could contain the power or splendor of a Diamond was another Diamond. But my Diamond had cunning and vision to spare and so made two: for each Rose Quartz injected she had a sister Citrine injected just for her. Each made to complement the other in every way so that, together, they could be nearly so perfect as the Diamonds themselves._
> 
> _In this my former Diamond succeeded beyond even her own expectations; an irony she spoke of with bitter resignation in our final exchange._
> 
> _I was made for Rose and she was made for me. Offense and defense. Harming and healing. Mind and body. Conviction and compassion. Two halves of a greater whole._
> 
> _However, there was a flaw, an imbalance, because I was the lesser of us, an imperfect fit for a perfect union. Rose was wise, insightful, with a greatness of vision I have never possessed. More than that, she was a better being, ethical in a way I've seen no other human or gem equal._
> 
> _It was a difficult realization that I was the lesser sister. For a time I fought against the truth, seeking to balance or even reverse the scales. Earth was a young colony brimming with potential and I threw myself into seeing that potential realized, in it and in myself._
> 
> _From the tallest spire to the deepest mineshaft, from lakes and forests to mountains and deserts, Rose and I traveled. Everywhere gems labored I came up with ideas for better seeing our Diamond's colony come together. And others listened because it was unwise to ignore a gem with the ear of a Diamond, and we few Rose Quartzes and Citrines were among Pink Diamond's favorites._
> 
> _My dear Rose Quartz listened too, to me and everyone else we spoke to. She asked a few quiet questions but her focus was on the gems rather than the colony. How did they feel? What did they think? What were their feelings about Earth? I didn't realize it at the time but, well, despite being renowned for my sight, it was Rose who possessed vision._
> 
> _I looked inward as well as outward to try and catch up with my sister. The Rose Quartz and Citrine gem lines were unprecedented and much was unknown; to my pride I was the first to discover some of what we could do. The day I summoned my first force field, Rose dragged me all the way to Pink Diamond's chamber, heedless of protocol, so that our Diamond could praise my cleverness._
> 
> _However, a cup with a hole will never stay filled. I nearly shattered myself when I transferred the cracks of a gem injured in an accident and it was only by Rose's intervention that I survived intact. It was then that I realized that no one could accept my flaw for me. Poked and prodded by Kindergartners while my Rose held me close, I saw that my place was in seeing Rose's greatness realized, raising my sister up instead of struggling to stand equal._
> 
> _Ours is not a kind universe, Connie, and splendid beings like Rose risk being dragged down, sullied by the very flaws in the world they are trying to correct. But someone who was already flawed could get their hands dirty so someone pure like Rose could remain clean. It was good that I realized this when I did because it was around then that Rose confided in me her own epiphany._
> 
> _Reform. It is a beautiful word. A hopeful one and, on the surface at least, peaceful. We met with our Diamond, a private audience granted to the two brightest cuts of her new gem lines. And our Diamond thought Rose had a number of wonderful ideas. There is a station which houses humans in idyllic comfort, where they are free of want, denied nothing save self-determination. According to Peridot, it exists to this day, maintained by Blue Diamond as a kind of living memorial to her shattered sister._
> 
> _Rose's idea had been otherwise, but a station left the planet free for Pink Diamond's vision of a glorious new era for gemkind. Everything else was listened to with great solemnity then brushed aside as charming naiveté. She complimented our cleverness and sent us on our way._
> 
> _Twice more Rose and I honed our arguments then stood before our Diamond. Twice more Rose was rebuked with, at most, token gestures to satisfy us._
> 
> _Reform is a beautiful word but in a universe such as ours, it is very rarely a peaceful one._
> 
> _Rose and I once more traveled across the spires and mines, the lakes and forests, the mountains and deserts. This time Rose spoke and the other gems listened. And when they wouldn't listen, whenever an Agate decided Rose had said enough, I made sure my better half, my sister went unsilenced and unharmed._
> 
> _I don't think Pink Diamond ever truly accepted us as anything but confused gems, wayward children who had lost their way. Or maybe she loved us in a way Diamonds, in their lofty perfection, are not supposed to love lesser gems. Whatever the cause, when we entered a spire and found our Diamond present, along with much of her court and a battalion of soldiers, it was so she could debate us rather than shatter us._
> 
> _It was a thing unthinkable, to argue with a Diamond and in public no less. When she invited Rose to do just that, the hall echoed with gasps. Rose was at her finest that night, though she confided in me after how she quaked to the core of her gemstone throughout the debate._
> 
> _Pink Diamond argued her position well, better, I think, than any other Diamond could have. But she was soon on the defensive, having to justify dogma that was normally taken as given. Rose, kindness that she was, demurred near the end to allow our Diamond to save face. I, however, saw an opening and attacked with rhetoric of my own, driving Rose's vision forward in the minds of all present._
> 
> _The last words our Diamond said was, "Seize them." We escaped and only barely. The Rebellion started in earnest soon after._
> 
> _The Rebellion was a beautiful and terrible thing. We discovered many new things as we waged the first war between gemkind: new powers; new uses for powers; that gems, even ones outside the warrior caste, could summon weapons. A Sapphire and a Ruby showed us that fusion between different gem types was possible, something which Rose thought was absolutely captivating._
> 
> _Some days after Garnet, as the pair had taken to calling themselves, joined us, Rose asked me in the privacy of our war room if I wished to try fusing with her. I have this to say on fusion, Connie, which is that it need not be confined to conflict but it should never be undertaken lightly. As I suspected at the time and later saw confirmed via Lapis and Jasper, you risk revealing much of yourself to your partner, and a flaw revealed can never again be hidden._
> 
> _I demurred and feel proud of that decision. This journal is a story of remorse and apologies; alongside Bismuth and Pink Diamond's end, this forms a trifecta of my greatest regrets. But this decision I hold earnestly._
> 
> _There is an expression of Jasper's that I think is appropriate, namely that Diamonds do not have dalliances with lesser gems. Though Rose was not the former, I was most definitely the latter. I would have tainted Rose were we to fuse and though my refusal confused and saddened her, it was the righteous thing to do._
> 
> _It is not that Rose was the only sister capable of kindness. Rather it seems that, unlike hers, my kindness so often comes paired with a measure of hurt. Perhaps, like my near-shattering when healing that gem, it is a result of me being poorly suited to the task. I hope it comes more naturally to you than it does for me, that you inherited as much from Doug._
> 
> _I digress, but this is a difficult story to write. I apologize, my dear Connie. You des-_

And the paragraph ended abruptly. The text picked back up below, though the color of the ink looked subtly different, as though it had been written later. It was a moment of emotional vulnerability preserved in amber, and it touched Connie to a degree that surprised her.

For so long her mother had been the woman pictured above the door: calm, confident, serene. Jasper spoke of a woman who always knew what to do. Lapis spoke of a woman who always knew what to say. Peridot spoke of a woman whose accomplishments were felt on an interstellar scale. Her dad spoke of a woman who marveled at the world and people around her.

But here was a woman apologizing, saddened, and too inarticulate to continue.

It was like Connie had walked into the Beach House and caught Citrine down from her painting, flawed and _real._ The sudden yearning that provoked in her was so sharp it made her gasp and before she knew it her vision was blurring.

Hastily but gently she set the book aside, not wanting to mar the paper with her tears.

The Connie in her imagination approached the woman slowly, as if she might startle and flee, and then mother and daughter embraced. Connie’s tears flowed freely and she bent forward, arms wrapped around her sides while she sobbed.

For some reason, the imagined embrace had the hard metal feel that came from hugging Peridot.

There was a blur of yellow in Connie’s peripheral vision, then more movement as a figure approached, and finally she felt actual arms around her.

“There there, Connie,” said her dad, the man kneeling so she could sob into his shoulder. She did, clinging to her father like she was swept overboard and he was her life ring. Finally, blinking back the tears, the yellow blur resolved into Wolf, the hound facing her from a few yards back. He must have fetched her dad from the archive to console her.

‘Thank you,’ she mouthed before burying her face into the base of her dad’s neck once more. She felt a gentle lick across the back of one palm as her dad and she held one another.

* * *

With a bellow, Jasper hefted the pillar above her head.

Peridot was briefly curious about what that mass weighed under Earth's gravitational pull: she'd tested Jasper's strength and resiliency soon into her tenure as a (then probationary) member of the Crystal Gems, but continued observation was the hallmark of a diligent empiricist.

However, the melodious crooning of the corrupted Pearls made it hard for her to put her thoughts into proper order and Jasper had already thrown the columnar projectile by the time she'd managed to configure her limb enhancer properly.

The pillar, one that had tried to drop on Lapis but been intercepted mid-fall by Peridot's tractor beam, rolled forward, triggering a number of additional traps: pits opening, flames shooting outward, beams firing, and additional deadfalls dropping. Only two-in-three of the traps functioned, and of those, half were of diminished effectiveness, millennia without maintenance largely to blame, but it was still enough to make advancing incautiously ill-advised.

"That's how a paladin checks for traps!" whooped Jasper.

Bismuth surveyed the devastation. "Nice one, Jaz."

Lapis skipped over to Peridot, the claw-print at sternum height still visible on her outfit. "Do you have any idea what Jasper's nerd-talk means?"

Peridot shook her head. "Negative. If I had to-" She trailed off as the tripartite song filled her mind, disorganizing her thoughts. With an act of will she marshalled them into a semblance of order and continued. "If I were compelled to guess, I think it is in reference to some literature or game she and Connie experienced in tandem."

Lapis nodded. "Yeah, I figured. Still, Jasper the hot nerd. Whodda thunk it?"

A particularly potent jet of flames illuminated the corridor ahead, the light reflecting off of the two forward-facing gemstones on the corrupted Pearl trio. They waited patiently beyond the range of the group's light sources, the intervening terrain too thoroughly trapped to make pursuit wise.

Experiments with blaster fire and other energetic attacks had triggered yet more defensive measures, Peridot's previous firing position reduced to a pool of still-cooling molten metal some yards behind them.

Several attempts had been made to cross the corridor more quickly via flight or tractor beam but the Pearls seemed able to deliberately set off traps to intercept such efforts. That or some other guiding intellect was behind the defensive activations.

Whatever the case, the current 'paladin' mode of progression was deemed sufficient by the quartet. They had been at this for some time now, heading steadily onward toward the Ziggurat's inner section and the control room within.

Besides, Jasper was clearly enjoying herself.

Peridot blinked. Hadn't she been asked a question? By... someone. Lazuli perhaps.

"Hey, uh..." Bismuth trailed off, snapping her fingers while she tried to remember something. She shrugged. "Hey, techie, you coming?"

Peridot looked around and realized the others had advanced twenty yards, or two column throws, since she'd last noticed.

The Pearl-song wasn't loud and yet did seem to loom large in the aural foreground.

"Apologies, I was... distracted," said Peridot, moving quickly to catch up but taking care to stay within the trail Jasper was blazing.

Satisfied, Bismuth turned back to Lapis. "And then what happened?"

Lapis smirked, casually twirling her hammer like a cane, the heavy water-filled mallet made light in conjunction with hyrdokinesis. "The second date special, of course: a flight out to somewhere nice and private. If they managed not to poof themselves from the flight or say something _really_ stupid, then I'd let them count my pyrite freckles."

Jasper, a little ways ahead, hefted another pillar.

Bismuth cocked her head to the side, squinting in the dim light at Lapis' face. "But you don't have any pyrite freckles."

Lapis winked. "Not where _you've_ seen, I don't."

"Lapis Lazuli!" started Peridot. "That is an inappropriate subject on a mission! Why what if-" The Era-2 trailed off, looking around confused and, for once, not (entirely) because of the distracting melody.

Lapis' smile widened. "Nope! Cauniflower's not here so I can be as inappropriate as I want. Check this out: jank!" Then, a beat later, she yelled the gem swear loud enough that it echoed ahead and behind them down the halls. "JANK!”

She turned back to Peridot. “Besides, if you’re worried about innocent minds getting corrupted, I think someone beat us to it,” and she jabbed a thumb in the direction of the Pearls.

There was an all-mighty crash as Jasper's pillar landed followed by the usual cacophony of fire, beam, thud, crackle, and assorted impacts.

"Shatter it sidewise with a rusty injector," added Jasper as the non-crooning noises died away. She shot Lapis and the others a childish grin as she did.

Bismuth shoved Lapis, the gem staggering a few paces to the side even as her hammer continued to twirl magically midair. "Save your swearing for the Agates, Blue, and get back to the story. You said this was interesting."

The blue gem's stagger would have triggered a laser trap but the aperture failed to open and so the only thing to happen was a dull glow and a thin trickle of smoke. It curled up and toward the opening where a pillar had been previously. An earlier examination had revealed the deadfalls were held in position by a localized vacuum and the pressure differential was drawing up the acrid vapor. Peridot would scoff at pneumatics for such infrastructure, but had to concede it seemed to function with a minimum of upkeep.

"I'm getting there, BM," said Lapis unhurriedly. "So I was taking Onyx flying-"

"Which one?" asked Jasper, striding through the rubble to see if her pillar was intact enough for another throw.

Lapis shrugged. "Honestly, I'm not sure. I never could tell the twins apart."

Bismuth smirked. "What? They didn't have different freckle patterns?"

Between the song and the banter, Peridot was having an exceptionally difficult time tracking down some thought. It was important, urgent even, but she was struggling to discern it. She did her best to tune the extraneous details out while she grappled with her own slippery mental processes.

"Don't know," answered Lapis. "Because Onyx, whichever Onyx it was, was a screamer."

Peridot shook her head, the thoughts collapsing like a jostled house of cards. "Acrophobia?" she asked, entering the conversation instead. When the others stared at her she clarified, stating, "Frightened by heights?"

"Well, maybe after this she was, but no, Onyx was having a grand ol' time flying Air Lazuli," quipped Lapis. "So much she gave an excited yell and suddenly my wings turned into puddles. The screaming got a whole lot louder on the way down."

Peridot snickered.

Jasper giggled, a sound Peridot had heard countably few times in the entirety of her roughly five centuries on Earth.

Bismuth looked bewildered from gem to gem. "Mind explaining the joke?"

Lapis gave Bismuth a level stare. "Duh. They've got a no-fun-powers zone they can turn on. Not long range but enough to make me do a surprise lithobrake across ten acres of pasture. Don't you remember?"

Bismuth scratched her head. "I must have been in the forge when it came up."

Looming at the edge of their vision, and clearly outlined on Peridot's lidar/sonar display, was a sectional divider. The outer layers of the Ziggurat were a winding path of traps meant to delay invaders while the defenders rallied or awaited reinforcements. They had crossed...

The crooning was louder but the source indistinct. The Pearls had vanished from her scans, disappearing into a Jefferies tube somewhere; those somehow even more heavily trapped than the corridors.

They had crossed a number of dividers, each a defensive hardpoint that took some effort to traverse, the door reluctant to open and quick to seal shut behind them.

"Do you got this one, Jaz, or should I-" was as far as Bismuth got before Jasper curled into a spindash, whirling in place faster and faster until rocketing forward.

A split-second before the Quartz struck the reinforced door, the way opened, the orange gem flying through. There was a moment where the brilliant flare of light and violence shone through and then the door closed.

"Gah!" yelped Peridot. "Swiftly! Bismuth! Open the way ahead!"

"Yeah," added Lapis, already flying forward, mallet held aloft. "We've got to save Jasper's perfect behind."

Bismuth looked momentarily bewildered but sprung into action soon enough. Shapeshifting one forearm into a pick, she wound back and then delivered a heavy blow to the door, the material of her limb puncturing the barrier. This was further enhanced when Lapis, in a practiced swing, struck Bismuth's pick-arm with her mallet, driving the weapon in further.

Peridot, meanwhile, was using her tractor beam and a pile of levitated debris to intercept the rain of mostly-operational traps dropping on the breaching pair.

Bismuth's arm shapeshifted again and something within the door squealed, a mechanism inside giving. With a 'thunk' the door slid open a foot, a gap which Lapis widened, wedging the handle of her mallet through and then hydrokinetically shoving it like a giant pry bar. Bismuth joined in, shifting a limb appropriately and lending her own considerable might to the task.

The song, still audible despite the ruckus, shifted, as though one singer had traveled away. Peridot felt her unruly thoughts lining up a bit more readily.

Door pried open, they were witness to the spectacle of Jasper, blasted, aflame, with pillar fragments ground into her mane, engaged in melee with two members of the Pearl trio. These, the black and lavender Pearls, circled the Quartz, striking with vicious kicks whenever they found an opening.

Jasper was roaring. With laughter.

Then, emerging from a Jefferies tube, was the larger matte orange Pearl charging Peridot.

Vision spheres going wide behind her glasses, Peridot whipped the tractor beamed debris around and disengaged the effect, dropping a small avalanche between her and the corrupted combatant.

"Gnyehehe- GAH!" Peridot's exultant cry becoming one of alarm as the large Pearl vaulted over the debris in a graceful bound, long, clawed legs pointed to deliver a heavy kick.

A mallet swung around and punted the Pearl down the corridor and beyond the light of Peridot's gemstone.

"Hey!" shouted Lapis. "No one hits on Peridot but me!" She swiveled around to face the melee beyond the sectional divide. "Jasper too!"

In the unlit distance a flame erupted as the Pearl landed, triggered a trap, and had to dodge to narrowly avoid it. Peridot saw it disappear into a narrow serviceway before the flames died down.

"What about me?" asked Bismuth as she waded into the melee, using a giant, maul-shaped forearm to punch aside some falling debris.

Between Bismuth, Jasper, and the occasional trap, the fight had turned into a brawl with too little room for the lithe blue combatant. Instead, the gem chucked her mallet, hyrdokinetically guiding it to harass the black Pearl.

"You're fair game," she remarked, calling her hammer back to herself and winding up another shot, the Pearls fleet-footed enough to make difficult targets. "My harem may be standing-room only but I've still got standards."

Jasper, still laughing despite suffering staggering amounts of physical abuse, delivered a kick which sent the smaller lavender Pearl tumbling. A beat later it too vanished into a Jefferies tube.

Diving through Bismuth's legs, the black Pearl made good its escape.

The crooning song faded with it, still audible but low.

 _Lapis' what?!_ squawked Peridot's thoughts. _No! Think Peridot! Things are out of sorts and for once your higher faculties are unimpeded._

Lapis gave Peridot a wink before turning her attention elsewhere.

 _Mostly unimpeded,_ she amended. _Now cogitate!_

Jasper was tossing rubble over the serviceway the last Pearl had escaped through, still chuckling and unconcerned about the swathes of her that were aflame.

Mercifully, Lapis floated a blob of water over and extinguished the Quartz, calling her 'hot enough already.'

"Hey gals," called Bismuth, jogging ahead, the ubiquitous traps proving less responsive. "I found something. Looks like someone tunneled in here. Did a shoddy job too. What'd they do, punch their way in?"

Peridot's vision spheres went wide as it all clicked into place.

"Hey, isn't that-" started Lapis.

"The Ziggurat's layout is a trap unto itself!" exclaimed Peridot. "Somehow we've been misdirected into making a circuit, which means the point of deeper ingress is-"

There was a beep as her sensors once again detected the Pearls beyond the group’s circle of light. This was accompanied by a swell of birdsong and Peridot's thoughts scattered like startled robonoids.

 _No! Negative! Unacceptable!_ she inwardly shouted. Two floating fingers rose up and then plugged her ears. The song was muffled but the effect remained, as if it was somehow resonating directly through her form.

Unplugging her ears, Peridot looked around desperately for respite.

"Well this sucks," drawled Lapis. "We've been going around in circles?"

Vision spheres screwed shut, Peridot thought, one torturous mental leap at a time, like a mountain climber trying to scale an ice-slicked slope in a blizzard.

"It-" Metaphorically slipping a step, Peridot clambered back up the terrain of her thoughts, holding tightly onto the most prized part of her being, her intellect. "It does suck. And- And we can use that. Yes. Yes!" Turning to the others, vision spheres open, she said, "Quickly, follow me! Through the sectional divide!"

"Wait, who's the green gal?" muttered Bismuth but Jasper, all grins, grabbed the smith's hand and led her after Peridot, Lapis winging along behind the technician and offering an appreciative whistle at the view.

All through, Peridot furrowed her brow and thought with fervent intensity. "Jasper, close the door. And seal the breaches."

Jasper nodded, wrenched the door closed, and tore a length of metal free from a downed trap. Looking at the hole Bismuth's pick-arm had made into, Jasper began to ball up the metal and then shoving it in place like spackle.

"Hey cutie. What about me?" asked Lapis skipping over.

Fighting against the crooning song and Lapis' choice of phrasing both, Peridot highlighted a half-dozen sites in the ceiling. "There are pillars in all these locations. Have-" She tripped on the next word. Tossing it aside like a broken tool, she barked instead, "Get them out."

Bismuth looked at Lapis and Jasper bemused, then at Peridot with open confusion. "Hey. So I guess you're a new recruit, which makes sense since you're so _green."_ She gave Peridot an expectant look and a grin.

Before Bismuth could finish her post-punchline sentence, Peridot, thoughts swimming, grabbed the smith in her tractor beam and thrust her in the direction of a section of wall. "Scans suggest there's a- A, uh- Gnyaa!” She cried in frustration, struggling to keep her focus.

Slowly, each word painstakingly delivered, she grit out, “Pneumatic. Pump. Station!"

The smith stared at her. "What about it?"

"Reverse it!"

There were a series of thuds as the pillars began to come down. At first Lapis had stepped on a pressure plate below the deadfall and then flapped aside. Then she reversed her mallet and used the handle to press one. Then, with a small facepalm reserved for herself, she set the water-filled hammer floating about to set the remainder off while standing a safe distance back. The few that refused to budge were pried free in a similar manner to the door or, when _that_ wouldn't work, enveloped with water borrowed from her mallet and tugged loose.

"Pillars are out, Dip-dop," called Lapis.

"Door's sealed. Probably," reported Jasper.

There was a squeal of metallo-ceramics as well as a muffled explosion as some trap or component detonated. Bismuth coughed and waved the air with a hand shifted into a broad fan shape. "Found your pump, uh, Greenie. If I swap these two conduits then all the atmosphere in here is getting evacuated. You know that, right?" She looked at Jasper and Lapis. "We're all cool with that?"

The crooning grew louder and the Pearl trio stepped to the very edge of the light, three silhouettes broadcasting a melodic kind of madness.

"Yes!" cried Peridot, trying and failing to discern what this was supposed to accomplish and having to trust that her past-self knew what she was doing.

Bismuth, hands as crimping pliers, sealed one conduit then fastened two more together, reversing the connections. Overhead there was a whistling noise as air was being hoovered up.

The door made a keening sound, air rushed through a hole Jasper had missed. "You shall not pass," stated the gem authoritatively and then plugged a thick finger into the gap, stopping the leak.

"We've gone from blow to suck!" shouted Lapis, accompanied by an eyebrow waggle.

"More like from suck to suck a lot harder," corrected Bismuth, gaze traveling between the pneumatic pump and the pipes overhead.

"You would know," was the blue gem’s retort.

With a roll of her eyes, Bismuth bent down and fiddled with something beneath the pump, then gave the side a good kick. The whistle overhead rose an octave, becoming the keening of an incoming missile.

Everything started to sound farther and farther away. Noise faded. Song faded.

To Peridot it felt like she'd been groping around blind within the sanctum of her thoughts and, oh so gradually, the lights were coming up.

They were... in the Ziggurat. They had been befuddled. A noise, no, the _song_ of the Pearls had been making each of the gems act cracked somehow. And the rumors about the Ziggurat being a haven for castoff Pearls had been true. More than a haven, they had been a core component of its defense network, which meant that the true entrance into the inner core would incorporate the suite of abilities available to Pearls.

And her memories from the disastrous launch were more than clear enough to give Peridot an idea of what to look for.

 _Come on!_ Peridot meant to shout, realizing as soon as she'd formed the words the futility of the act. Instead, she summoned a large hologram and, in large letters wrote, 'Follow me,' underlining them twice for emphasis.

The others followed suit, though Jasper had to shine her nose here and there before finding another piece of metal she could wedge into the hole her finger was plugging.

The Pearls tracked the group, holding to the twilight of their approach. Presumably they were still keening their confounding song but the Pearls of the Ziggurat were corrupted and what vestiges of intelligent behaviors they had --avoiding the traps, triggering traps to stave off intruders, using the peripheral infrastructure to navigate-- were being followed rote.

That they would continue to serve as they did spoke volumes of their loyalty, though.

Two-hundred and fifty yards down the corridor Peridot's sensor registered what she'd suspected they'd find. There was a nondescript section of wall, seemingly no different than any other, which Peridot passed through without difficulty. Behind the hologram was a heavy door; by pleasant coincidence it was of similar build and design to an airlock. And in a niche beside the door was a Pearl bird, seafoam green and missing one leg, sitting and projecting the false front.

It didn't react to the technician, so intent was it on sustaining the illusory wall.

There had once been an elaborate mechanism, probably trapped, to keep the unauthorized from opening this door but time or war had seen it rendered inert. Peridot was able to disengage the lock manually and, with a brief puff of escaped air, a short corridor was revealed ending in an identical vault door. Jasper, Lapis, Peridot, and Bismuth stepped into the corridor, closed and sealed the door behind them, then unsealed and opened the door in front of them. There was another puff, this time of air rushing in to fill the void, and then sound returned.

There was no krooning, no song that Peridot or her sensors could detect.

"Good thing Meatball wasn't here," remarked Bismuth, "Or we couldn't have done that vacuum trick." She gave Peridot a thumbs up then paused in thought. "Does Alloy need to breathe?"

Jasper nodded. "She does." Then she scowled at her hands. "Wish I could figure out Steven's finger-talk," muttered the Quartz. "It'd be tactically useful back there."

Lapis shrugged philosophically. "Some things gems were not meant to know." Then she looked a bit less stoic. "Speaking of, there may have been some things said back there and I want you all to know how utterly, completely, and profoundly... _relieved_ I am that, even when I'm cracked I still know better than to make a pass at Skittles."

Bismuth shoved the blue gem into the wall but, rather than looking offended, seemed pleased herself.

"That may be a premature statement of comfort, Laz," said Peridot, her voice suddenly soft, her gaze following the details projected across the surface of her glasses.

Lapis, batting Bismuth’s hand away and stepping clear of the wall, gave Peridot a sidelong glance. "Eh?"

Transferring her sensor readings to a holographic display, the technician said, "Because there appear to be quite a few more Pearls between us and our destination."

The display showed the corridor in front of them and then a larger, open space. The blips represented additional gems, presumably Pearls.

There were a _LOT_ of blips.

* * *

> _At first Homeworld’s forces had been almost laughably clumsy, like a new fusion first walking. Rose and I alone had managed to disable the Prime Kindergarten, driving off a battalion of Amethysts and sabotaging the control center._
> 
> _We were always outnumbered; even at the height of the Rebellion, Homeworld had more soldiers, more ships, and more resources. The disaffected gems of a nascent colony were few in comparison to an empire. Our victories were earned by being smarter and more determined than our foe, confident and decisive in our strikes, not by raw strength of arms._
> 
> _But our Diamond was taking us seriously now and she, along with a rare few members of her inner circle, began to learn from our tactics and respond with measures of their own. Furthermore, our sister Quartzes, those few Rose Quartz and Citrine pairs to emerge, were permitted to serve our Diamond, bringing new powers and insights to Homeworld’s arsenal._
> 
> _Despite it all, Rose’s faith in her vision never faltered, nor my faith in her. We led and fought on, sabotaging when we couldn’t capture, embarrassing when we couldn’t defeat._
> 
> _I think it was Jasper’s defection that prompted Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond to intervene. The most perfect Quartz from the most imperfect Kindergarten, Pink Diamond’s self-professed champion, a celebrity spoken of from here to Homeworld; that gem turning traitor and fighting against her own Diamond’s forces was too great a scandal to ignore. So they arrived, these Diamonds, with fleets and soldiers beyond counting, to clean up the mess that Pink Diamond evidently could not._
> 
> _In a way it breathed new life into the Rebellion. Our former Diamond was pushed to the margins while her older sisters took over. Unlike her, they weren’t interested in learning from the Rebellion, only in stomping it out and quickly. Our sister Quartzes were imprisoned (or worse) on suspicion of collusion. Our tricks, new and old, worked once more except where a rare few of Pink Diamond’s loyalists held influence: the Sea Shrine research facilities, the Ziggurat, the lunar Diamond base. Where Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond reigned, we stood a fighting chance._
> 
> _In another way, it only served to prolong the inevitable. Even if our tactics allowed us to defeat a hundred times our number, Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond were willing to meet every rebel with a thousand loyalists._
> 
> _Inch by inch the Rebellion was losing._
> 
> _But Yellow and Blue Diamond’s arrival had brought with it an opportunity. A weakness. The middle Diamonds were powerful, their armies all but unstoppable, but they were vulnerable through their love for their smaller sister. Shattering Pink Diamond would shatter their resolve. They would become blind to all else, lashing out in rage and despair. And in that state either they would be defeated or they would retreat, ceding the Earth._
> 
> _I do not know if my ability to panic or enrage works against the Diamonds, but this strike would accomplish the same and on a grander scale._
> 
> _Poofing Pink Diamond and bubbling her gem wouldn't have worked in place of shattering her. Quite the opposite, it would have hastened our doom. The remaining Diamonds would have been more focused and terrifying, galvanized by the singular goal of having their sister restored. It's even possible White Diamond might have been roused from Homeworld, and the entire will of the Diamond Authority bent to the task of Pink Diamond's rescue via the Rebellion's extermination._
> 
> _Given how the war actually concluded, with all three Diamonds present over the Earth for their final attack, I'm convinced this rescue mission-turned invasion would have come to pass._
> 
> _I must stress, my dear Connie, that it is a terrible thing to shatter a gem. There are few things worse than to violently end the life of another thinking, feeling being, to make the ultimate choice for them and take away their agency entirely, forever. There were those within the Rebellion who wanted to shatter, not as an accident, not as a painful but sometimes inevitable consequence of conflict, but as a strategy unto itself. For dominance, or revenge, or sheer, malicious glee._
> 
> _There was no place for gems like that in the Rebellion, united under Rose and me, divided between us, or reunited under me alone._
> 
> _But if shattering a single gem could save the Earth and all that it represented; if that shattering could see Rose’s glorious vision brought to be, then it would be worth it. And I would ask no other gem to carry the shame of so loathsome an act than myself._
> 
> _The plan was bold, decisive, and confident. It was dirty, despicable, and violent. If Rose and I were two halves of a whole, a yin yang colored like our stones, then this decapitation strike was entirely yellow without a hint of pink._
> 
> _Of course Rose refused it. She wouldn’t be Rose if she hadn’t. She was too good of a person to even entertain the notion. But try as I might --while leading and fighting and planning so as to slow the Rebellion’s inexorable loss-- I could not come up with a way to enact my plan without Rose’s involvement._
> 
> _A Diamond does not shatter easily._
> 
> _For a long time we grew used to the argument. Our soldiers treated it as something typical, just a thing their generals did between defeats. Rose would never budge, I could never find a solution that left the taint of shattering on my hands alone, and so the status quo continued and the Rebellion ceded ground._
> 
> _Ours is not a kind universe, Connie. If it were then Rose’s vision could have come to pass without having Pink Diamond’s shards at its feet. If it were then I would have found a way to convince Rose or fool her, something that would let me commit the deed while leaving Rose’s hands clean._
> 
> _Here is where I failed Rose, failed the Rebellion, failed the Earth, and failed you. I failed to find that way forward, that path to victory that didn’t sully a splendid being like Rose in the very flaws of the world she sought to correct._
> 
> _I am sorry, Connie. Deeply, truly, gem-deep sorry. This moment, more than any other, do I regret._
> 
> _We had suffered a stunning defeat: numerous bases and resource depots lost and one in five rebels captured (or worse) in a single encounter. The remaining rebels looked up to Rose and me with harrowed expressions, their faith in us and what the Rebellion stood for strained to the limit._
> 
> _Rose and I argued, the old argument but louder, angrier, more desperate. And in my desperation I reached out to Rose, pristine, pure, beautiful, and sought to make her agree. Only for a little while --the changes are always temporary, as you have no doubt discovered for yourself, and they revert faster the more strongly they run counter to the personality changed-- and afterwards she would be herself again and free, free to hate me in her victory, free to cast me out from a world too good to permit flawed beings like myself._
> 
> _My powers, and perhaps yours as well, are active. They must be willed forth so that I may act, fight, and win. Rose's powers are reactive, instinctual. She cries because she can't not cry at the suffering of others; it is no more a conscious choice for her than breathing is for Doug. She defends from attacks before she fully registers them. And when I attacked her, she defended._
> 
> _I stared at her, her expression pink-tinged behind her bubble, her mind visible but untouchable. I saw the shock, betrayal, and disgust blossom across her features and mindscape simultaneously. Her vista was pristine, my attack perfectly countered by my more-perfect sister's defense. And so I know it was her and her alone who decided she had to save the Earth from the Diamonds and me as well._
> 
> _During our next major military action, Rose and her loyalists split off, leaving our flank undefended as Homeworld poured through. For most that was when the Schism happened. But for me it happened there, in our war room, when my sister, my soul mate, the most beautiful and ethical person I've known, decided I was her enemy._

The world had narrowed down to Connie, the journal, and the large, teak seat she was sitting in. All sights and sounds were filtered out, deemed extraneous by her very literate mind in a way familiar to all avid readers who find themselves with a _very_ compelling book. It's a state where everything else can wait at least until the next chapter break; now _go away,_ I'm reading!

Connie's eyes and ears were onboard but Connie's nose was a base and treacherous thing. And that was why, when a whiff of Fish Stew Pizza (with mushrooms!) reached her, the rest of the world came rushing back accompanied by a loud gurgle from her also-treacherous stomach.

Steven sat on the ottoman across from her, an aromatic slice sitting on a paper plate in his lap. "Your dad and Wolf went back to get dinner. Are you hungry?" he asked, a question made redundant by the seismic noises emerging from Connie's midsection.

In the background, Wolf was pushing an open pizza box across the floor with his snout as he made slice after slice vanish, demonstrating why the verb form of the word 'wolf' existed. Her dad, meanwhile had brought a crate from the laboratory and was seated on it, eating and watching Wolf with an amused expression. Noticing his daughter's stare he raised his pizza slice in salute, his eyes supportive and a little concerned behind his glasses.

With a final sigh, Connie relinquished the vestiges of her literary outrage. "I am. Thank you," she said, reaching for the pizza while her stomach gnawed impatiently at her ribs. She would return to her mother's tale soon, but first she needed to allow the men in her life to take care for her.

Steven smiled and picked up his own plate of pizza (pineapple, no mushrooms) from the floor, then bent down a second time and grabbed two juice boxes, passing one to Connie. "To pizza and destiny," he said.

"Pizza and destiny," repeated Connie and they toasted juice boxes before drinking, each saying 'clink' when the boxes touched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Citrine has long, looong been, as Connie put it, the gem within the painting: serene, aloof, and above the conflict of the Beach House and beyond. What tales Connie has heard have been Citrine viewed through the lens of one biased observer or another. But here we're finally getting the details from the gem herself, and about Rose Quartz as well! It paints a different picture than the one that hangs over the entryway. Expect the lore bombs to fall (and some incredible art as well) next Wednesday, February 13th, for the final update of _Knowledge and Power_.
> 
> Mad props must be given to reader and commenter, FusionMonkey3, who said in Ch2:
>
>> Is it intentional that the inverted colors of the pearls are yellow, blue, and white or just an interesting coincidence?
> 
> The answer is YES!  
>   
> Now, inverted Lavender doesn't quite have the right color --she'd need to be a darker purple for the yellow to look right-- but we were too pleased with how the shade fit her appearance to change it. Anyway, I applaud the art team for these cunning little details and applaud FusionMonkey3 for figuring it out! Peri Point for FusionMonkey3!  
> 
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.
> 
> Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. [Come check it out.](https://discord.gg/RQMDdhr)
> 
> As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the [Connie Swap Tumblr](http://connieswap.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!


	4. Truth and Deception

The four gems looked at Peridot’s hologram, a multitude of gems, Pearls most likely, detected deeper into the fortress.

Jasper scowled at the display, her fists clenched. Then she shook her head as well. “That’s too many opponents. Unless-” and she gave Lapis a side look.

“Oh heck no,” muttered the blue gem, lithe arms wrapping around herself as if suddenly going cold.

“I would strongly recommend against fusion at this juncture,” observed Peridot. “Malachite can be… unpredictable in the best of circumstances. And even Tiger’s Eye-”

“Tiger’s Eye?” asked Bismuth.

Peridot waved the smith’s question aside and continued speaking. “And even Tiger’s Eye may grow erratic if the Pearls in the space beyond were to use this confounding aural assault of theirs that is, literally, unheard of.”

“Gals, who’s Tiger’s Eye?” pressed an ignored Bismuth.

Lapis nodded. “No, bigger Tigger acting cracked would be bad news.” Then she cocked her head to the side, expression perplexed. “And what’s up with that? It’s a catchy tune, sure, but why was it making me swipe right like it was going out of style?”

Peridot shrugged. “I’m unsure and-” The gem paused, meeting every gems’ eyes before she spoke. “-Until we have determined an appropriate countermeasure, I am recommending we call off the mission and withdraw.”

This was met with groans from the others.

Bismuth gave Peridot a light shove, more of a nudge given the gem’s strength, and said, “Ah, come on, Green. I thought you were ready to step back up, tell those elites they can suck gravel if they want to mess with the Crystal Gems.”

Peridot’s eyes narrowed, limb enhancers crossed. “That is a premature evaluation of yours. And besides, it is only prudent to make a tactical retreat until we are prepared.”

Jasper gave Peridot a looong stare, the green gem finding it hard to meet. “Find another way,” the Quartz said simply.

“Pardon?”

“Homeworld could be returning soon. They’ve already sent scouts. We need this weapon. Find another way.” Jasper gestured to the vacuumed exterior behind them. “You’re capable.”

Peridot was uncertain if the Quartz meant she was capable in this moment or if it was a recognition of overall competence. Either way, she found herself giving a defeated sigh and muttering, "I will see if any novel angles of approach present themselves," while lamenting her own indispensability.

While Peridot pondered, Bismuth peeled a strip of reflective metal off the wall and then, shapeshifting her hand into something long and thin, extended it out so she could peer around the corners with her improvised hand mirror.

“I see two Pearl birds out there,” she said in a low voice. “And floor-to-ceiling curtains too. Who decorates a fortress with curtains?” she asked, sounding incredulous.

“Probably the same gem who turned this place into the Island of Misfit Pearls,” drawled Lapis. “Besides, weren’t there ballets and balls held here?”

Jasper nodded. “Came to one once. Before.” The unspoken, ‘before joining the Rebellion’ was clear to all present. “Pink Diamond brought me.” She looked a little abstracted for a moment before focusing on Bismuth. “Curtains,” she confirmed.

Slowly drawing her hand and ersatz mirror into hiding, Bismuth said, “Well, it’s curtains for us if we go out there and start something with the...” The smith trailed off then seemed to ponder something. “What do you call a bunch of Pearls? It’s a mob of Rubies and a pack of Quartzes, but Pearls?”

“A troupe,” muttered Peridot, still distracted by her own thoughts. Then something clicked and she blinked owlishly behind her glasses. “The overcooked Amethyst cohabitated with the corrupted members of the Quartz Pack for centuries.”

“Oh?” asked Bismuth. “How’d she do that?”

“Shapeshifting,” answered Jasper. “Looked like the others. Blended in.” She turned to Peridot, a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “Smart. We can walk right through.”

“Well, most of us,” said Lapis softly, giving Peridot a long look.

Peridot heaved a sigh that was as loud as she dared make it. “I… may have an alternative approach available. I will prepare it while you three ready your forms as corrupted chattel.”

Lapis was slow to break her gaze with Peridot, but when she did she transferred the water from her mallet into her canteen, collapsed the weapon, and handed both over to the technician. Peridot took the proffered items in silence.

“Wait, what’s the proble-” started Bismuth before Lapis silenced the smith with a shake of her head. ‘Later,’ she mouthed and gestured with her eyes towards Peridot.

Three forms became indistinct shapes of light, gemstones bobbing across them as hard light bodies reconfigured.

“Remember,” muttered Peridot while she was tapping a battery of commands into her primary limb enhancer, “you are malformed gems, warped beyond a semblance of normalcy. Your visage must be unsettling and uncanny.”

Looking up she saw a trio of ‘Pearls’ and immediately clapped her hand-equivalents over her mouth. Whether it was to stifle a cry or a snicker, though, she was unsure.

Lapis peered back, her blue form reminding Peridot of the clumsy crayon drawings of animals three-year-old Connie would make, a veritable menagerie depicted as colorful blobs. That Lapis’ form had a duck bill and mismatched eyes didn’t help.

“Alright Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up,” said Lapis in a husky voice.

A grey Pearl bird, wings somehow appearing muscular, with rainbow feathers running down her head and neck peered up and down the blue… thing. “Well, you sure as schist got the unsettling part down.”

“Go kiss a destabilizer,” huffed Lapis, the gem’s difficulty with non-humanoid shapeshifting coming to the fore.

Shaking her head, Peridot turned to take in the last member of the faux-troupe. Her eyebrows went up. “Jasper, however did you manage to hide your gemstone?”

Across from her was a pearl that looked like the larger sister of the matte orange corruption they had skirmished with earlier. The shape was a bit more cassowary than secretary bird but it was otherwise accurate. No gemstone was visible anywhere on the striped, orange avian.

“Talent,” said Jasper, the glint of something orange visible within her beak. Then she added, “Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” sighed Peridot, tapping the final sequence into her limb enhancer.

A large, rectangular hologram appeared in front of Peridot, transparent but obscuring her form. Depicted on it was a green and yellow Pearl corruption as viewed head on. This was layered by another, identical hologram immediately in front of it, then another, and another until the layering proved thick enough that the technician was hidden from sight. Further holographic layers appeared at her sides and rear, showing the same faux-Pearl from those angles.

It was the holographic-equivalent of sneaking around behind a cardboard cutout.

Peridot was no more able to see out through her disguise than the others could see in. Instead she was forced to rely on the sonar/lidar HUD projected onto her glasses, which was why she heard but could not see Bismuth when she said, voice laced with mirth, “Oh, this is going to be great.”

* * *

> _In trying to shatter Pink Diamond, I shattered the bond between Rose and me. We were two parts of a larger whole trying to function on our own._
> 
> _It was a special kind of agony._
> 
> _For a time, the Rebellion that was still faithful to me did little save retreat, cede ground and try to curtail losses. Which is not to say the Rebellion was absent heroes. You have likely seen some in the Sanctuary, as statues if not also as the Diamonds' vengeance left them. Despite the collapse Rose's rebuke inflicted on me, Jasper, Obsidian, Bismuth, and others rallied, carrying the cause on their shoulders while their general wept._
> 
> _What pulled me through that period was the realization that I was not entirely forsaken. My goal had always been to see Rose's vision realized and could do so still. War is a grim and dangerous business and in more harmonious times Rose and I had discussed what to do if one of us should fall._
> 
> _Grasping to this, I hauled myself out of despair. That my rebels welcomed me with cheers and relief, glad to see their general back, was both a balm and a reminder of the obligations I would now have to shoulder alone._
> 
> _One such obligation arose swiftly with morale dropping in the wake of the Schism. Rose was ever the inspiring one, gifted with words where I preferred to speak through action. For some, like Jasper, action is enough; preferable even. But for others, doubt and despair took root absent Rose's rhetoric to nurture their hope._
> 
> _As you may have discovered, our sight can be used to know when others are apprehensive, nervous, guilty. When the Rebellion was united, I would use it to discern spy from faithful while Rose led them through the oath. Now I could see, clear as the sun overhead, hopelessness among the ranks._
> 
> _Perhaps you are other than me, dear Connie, and find people approachable, intuitive. If so then you may not understand the following, but I was unable to fill Rose's place. I shudder to recall some of my early attempts at stepping clear of Rose's shadow, to be a light to others with a kind word and knowing smile. Perhaps you are graceful in word and deed and will laugh at the folly of your mother. I did in time learn to be better but time wasn't something the Rebellion or Earth had to spare._
> 
> _Where and when I could, I did what I was able to ease their burden, whatever the means._
> 
> _Homeworld's inexorable advance became a headlong sprint with the Rebellion divided. Rose's loyalists and mine resisted but it was too little._
> 
> _I did what I could to keep my forces from skirmishing with Rose's and I suspect she did the same, but the hurt and shame of betrayal was not Rose's and mine alone. Others lashed out, lines were drawn, and beliefs coalesced to distinguish pink rebels from yellow._
> 
> _Homeworld, secure in their eventual victory, had a Lapis Lazuli brought to Earth so that terraforming and colony development could resume. To help make up for lost time, the Lapis was powerful indeed._
> 
> _Lapis was attacked by Bismuth during a skirmish, a noncombatant caught in the crossfire. Why she joined the Rebellion as readily as she did after reforming was something I understood poorly at the time._
> 
> _A condition to her enlistment was that she would get to meet with her attacker once more. And when she did, she gave up all pretense at being a rebel and sought only to see Bismuth shattered._
> 
> _It was a matter of days and no small amount of collateral damage but in the end she found Bismuth too durable to shatter. Somehow the two managed to have a dialogue during the colossal brawl and by the end, Lapis was a rebel through and through. I have asked both of them several times since how that came to pass. Lapis said it most eloquently, I think, with, "If I stayed with Homeworld than there was no guarantee I could be there to laugh when someone finally shattered her."_
> 
> _I suspect the beauty of the Earth's rivers, lakes, and oceans planted the first seeds of rebellion in Lapis, but Bismuth was the one to make them bloom._
> 
> _Lapis changed the course of the Rebellion, driving Homeworld from the skies and coastlines both. The war exacted a heavy toll on her, though, and I urge you to offer her what relief you can, as I did and still do. She has earned every second of peace and happiness there is to be had._
> 
> _Ironically, fusion was one of the major ideological divisions between halves of the Rebellion. And yet it was fusion that would compel the halves together once more. Jasper and Lapis, if you don't know, can fuse into Malachite, a weapon of unparalleled power. As mentioned, Lapis did not take well to war and Jasper was a stabilizing influence on her. In their way, the two complimented each other well, though in others Malachite was merely trading one toll for another._
> 
> _With Malachite as spearhead, ground was regained. Homeworld's advance, once inevitable, was stalled. Emboldened by our victories and fearful of our might, Rose's loyalists began to find their way to my camp._
> 
> _I do not know why, but it was then that Rose's forces began to openly attack my own, not squabbles and skirmishes, but outright assault. Perhaps my better half was growing desperate, fearful I would ruin the very world we sought to protect. Perhaps she knew, in time, I would be compelled to shatter and hoped to prevent that from coming to pass._
> 
> _Whatever the case, a Rebellion divided could no longer be allowed. The stakes were too high and the chance of victory, too precarious._
> 
> _I gave my dear Rose and her faithful an ultimatum: rejoin, relent, or be removed._
> 
> _As Rose's faction was dealt with root and stem, Homeworld began to grow bolder. Luckier. Hidden locations were attacked and long-laid plans began to unravel. Some, converts from Rose's faction, said Rose herself was in communication with Pink Diamond. I do not believe this, or if such talks occurred, I hold that their purpose was misinterpreted._
> 
> _Rose would not do such a thing. She could not, not my Rose, not the radiant being that held love and beauty above loyalty to her Diamond, above even gemkind._
> 
> _In time the Rebellion was reunited under my banner. A rare few forswore the fighting altogether and retreated to solitude. Garnet was the last of these, though she stayed with Rose until the bitter end. As you may imagine, there is little love between Garnet and I, and she was close-lipped even when she was an ally. But if you have the opportunity, you would be wise to learn what you can from her, for there are things she would know that have ever evaded me._
> 
> _But I get ahead of my tale, loath as I am to recount this part._
> 
> _Yet again did I fail her, my Rose, and the scrape upon the gemstone I have passed to you is a reminder of that shame._

There was an aching sensation and it was only after a few, confused seconds that Connie realized where it was coming from: she was clutching her gemstone painfully tight.

With an act of will, she relaxed her hand and looked down at the stone. It was hard to see at this angle, a mirror was needed for a full inspection, but even from this vantage she could see the scrape.

She'd wondered about it for so long and now-

Another ache, this one far less mysterious, percolated up to Connie's awareness. Looking around she saw Wolf and Steven laying nearby, the latter snoozing inside a sleeping bag with Wolf's paw as his pillow.

There were two more sleeping bags spread out, these empty. Probably mister Universe's since Connie was pretty sure he owned a half-dozen of all the camping supplies, ever.

Her dad was sitting in a folding chair, likely brought with the sleeping bags, hunched forward and reading. The pizza boxes from earlier were stacked and being used as an end table for him. They were supporting a steaming thermos and a collection of grey books with machine-printed lettering on the spines. 

Connie rose, a little stiff after sitting for so long, and tried to creep quietly past the sleeping pair. Wolf's ears twitched at her footfalls but the hound didn't rouse.

Her dad raised the thermos to his lips and sipped, noticing Connie walking quietly over. The air around him smelled like coffee. "Hey cute lass," he said in quiet voice. "How are you doing?"

"I'm- The journal is intense but I can't _not_ read it." Then she shifted from foot to foot, an air of urgency about her. "But, uh-"

Her dad stared at her for a second before recognition lit up his face. "Ah. Yeah. It's in the back of the lab, behind the last partition. It's the best I could do for privacy without touching her things." 

There was no need to clarify who 'her' referred to.

She shot her dad a grateful smile and hustled past. Bladders cared little about destiny.

* * *

With some trepidation in her form, Peridot followed her shapeshifted compatriots out into the corridor.

Whereas the Ziggurat’s outer layer had been a creative death trap meant to stymie invasion, the inner area was intended for the loyal gems stationed here to carry out their Diamond-assigned roles. This meant they were now much less likely to have weaponized surroundings do them harm, but this certainly didn’t mean they were safe.

Seeing the profusion of blips on her HUD --they were in the visual range of at least a dozen corrupted Pearls now-- Peridot momentarily longed for the maze of traps.

There was a coo and one of the blips approached the group. Lapis cleared her throat and then said, “Coo coo cachoo.”

Being behind a many-layered holographic disguise meant Peridot could bury her face in her hand-equivalents without threatening their ruse.

Another blip approached, walked a circuit around the four of them, and then touched or nuzzled the shapeshifted Jasper; Peridot’s data was too inexact to provide a clearer description.

A gravelly voice hummed a song, something like a waltz or allemande, which was immediately picked up by the surrounding blips. For a span of seconds there was an a cappella musical number, sung sweetly if eerily as avian calls rose and harmonized. Then the song collapsed as singers went silent seemingly at random. A last, deep note was sustained by Jasper before there was quiet.

The blips that approached them wandered off and there were neither cries of alarm or sounds of violence.

The group hastily advanced down the corridor.

Once Peridot’s HUD showed a lack of surrounding figures, she heard in what counted for a hushed whisper from Bismuth, “I didn’t know you were a music lover, Jaz.”

“Said earlier I was taken to one of these balls,” said the disguised Quartz. “The Pearls sang and danced. That was one of the songs.”

“Good thinkin’, OJ,” Lapis commended.

Then the figure marked blue on Peridot’s HUD turned to face her. “Which way are we going on this musical mystery tour?”

“I am unsure precisely but there is a large space ahead, presumably a mustering hall or barracks,” explained the technician. “It would be logical for the command center to be located somewhere in that vicinity or, failing that, we might find access to a major thoroughfare we can explore instead.”

“Just don’t mingle with the audience too much,” warned Lapis, “or we’re going to get ballroom blitzed.”

“Ah, and here I thought these fancy upper crust parties might actually be fun,” teased Bismuth.

Approaching blips meant the conversation was over. Trying to travel swiftly but not so much as to attract attention, the four moved on.

From both scans and the sound of things, Peridot could tell they had entered a larger, open space but as she panned back further and further on her HUD she was surprised by just _how much_ larger it was.

That was a _lot_ of Pearls she was detecting.

There was a low whistle from the grey-and-rainbow icon and the blue one said, “Holy sh- ahem, coo. Coo coo.” Another moment passed and then, “Coo knew Pink Diamond had balls this big?”

The orange icon gave what Peridot firmly hoped was a wing-smack upside the blue icon's head.

Deciding to risk it, Peridot stripped several of the holographic layers from overhead. It would leave her faintly visible from above but would allow her a direct glimpse at her surroundings. 

The walls were richly decorated with ornate light fixtures as well as the aforementioned curtains that had so bewildered Bismuth. Situated between the curtains were frescoes, like something from an art gallery but writ much, much larger. Peridot could only see the top third or so of them but they looked to be dramatized scenes of gemkind’s expansion beyond Homeworld.

But most impressive of all was the ceiling. A gently sloping dome covered the entire, massive room and every inch of it visible to Peridot was depicting Pink Diamond’s arrival to Earth. It reminded her of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel... if it had been built an order of magnitude larger and Michelangelo had used an inordinate amount of pink.

To judge from Jasper’s statements, it was possible this space was also used for musical and theatrical productions. That would explain why this enormous space seemed to be designed with acoustics in mind, as well as why there were scores of corrupted Pearls present. Navigating between the clusters of them made for slow going and necessitated silence.

Arms spread wide, the Pink Diamond overhead welcomed all of gemkind to the paradise she was preparing for them.

 _It could have been great,_ a part of Peridot observed, witnessing the spires, campuses, and expanses of Kindergartens planned and portrayed above. _And had it come to pass, I might not be as I am,_ she continued, stepping lightly to mask the clunk of her gravity connectors, duct tape-wrapped limb enhancers visible in her peripheral vision. _A causal chain averted: no war would mean no resource shortages would mean no Era-2, and thus no Era-2 gems._

Peridot blinked, a tethered finger brushing under one lens of her glasses. She had to turn her attention back to the details of her HUD so she could remain in proximity to the others and avoid the almost Brownian motion of the Pearls.

Then, looking up again she saw what was conspicuously absent: organic life. No trees, no animals, no humanity.

As first impressions went, Earth’s organic life left much to be desired. But viewed more closely and with a mind open to deeper potential… 

A memory of finger painting with a much younger Connie came to mind, the girl holding the art up for Peridot’s appreciation and smiling widely as Peridot affixed it to the refrigeration unit with magnets.

The organic life on Earth was incomparable and irreplaceable.

It made the preemptive pain of losing it in a hail of orbital bombardment all the sharper.

Lost in her bittersweet reminiscence, she almost missed it when Bismuth sidled up beside her and cleared her throat. “Hey, Green. We’ve got a situation,” she whispered.

Crouching to what she hoped was the appropriate height to whisper back, Peridot said, “Please elaborate.”

“Blue’s having a hard time holding the form and honestly, I was never great keeping a shape that went above my elbows. Jaz isn’t complaining but I know she’s feeling it too.”

Peridot focused on the map overlayed on her HUD, what details of her surroundings her sensors could retrieve and project onto her glasses-cum-visor. When she had suggested cutting through the open space ahead of them she had not anticipated it being quite _this_ large. It made her wonder if perhaps the Ziggurat had been retrofitted, built for ceremonial import originally and converted into a fortress afterwards.

Whatever the case, she saw only a single corridor branching off from this chamber that they could reach in a timely manner. “There is a point of egress eighty yards from our location along the eastern wall. If we move swiftly we-”

“Sorry, where?” came the voice on the other side of holographic screen. “All I see are Pearls and fuel for the fires of class warfare.”

“I- But-” stammered the technician in a soft voice. Then, turning to her primary limb enhancer, she said, “One moment while I attempt something.”

The holographic displays shrouding her were large, rectangular panes of soft light. With what she hoped was a flicker too brief to be discerned, she adjusted the ones in front of her to be two rectangles on top of one another with a narrow horizontal gap between them, as though someone had cut a picture laterally and left a narrow margin between the top and bottom halves when taping it back together.

Crouching slightly, Peridot was able to peer through the gap and see the space ahead with her own vision spheres, or at least an attenuated cross-section of it. As Bismuth had stated, there was no outward sign of an opening in the wall.

Returning her disguise back normal, Peridot hissed, “The path of egress in question is holographically obscured.”

“Which means it’s important,” finished the shapeshifted smith.

Unseen, Peridot nodded in agreement. “Inform the others. We move with all haste.”

The quartet traveled quickly, Jasper having to once more hum a reprise of the previous melody to distract or ingratiate herself to some intervening Pearls. The size of this Onyx’s collection of servants was staggering until Peridot remembered it was largely comprised of the unwanted or unneeded specimens thereof.

As soon as they were through the holographically hidden wall she heard the sound of a form being changed and then an long, low sigh of relief from Lapis.

This was followed by a surprised croon.

Nothing unusual showed on Peridot’s HUD: they should be alone in the corridor. With the press of a button, the layers of holograms fell away and Peridot could see-

A teal corrupted Pearl, half the size it should be and missing one wing entirely, was looking at them from a shadowy alcove. Because its size had fallen outside the bounds programmed into her sensor array, her HUD had failed to register it as present. Being tucked away like it was made it difficult to spot conventionally.

It had been maintaining the projection of the wall.

Emphasis on ‘had been.’

Probably sixty or more feathery heads were turned their way from the ballroom beyond.

Bismuth, still in Pearl form, gestured to herself and the avian-shaped Jasper, saying, “We’re not with them,” at the same time Lapis asked, “Is this the Coachella Valley carrot festival or did I miss that left turn at Albuquerque?”

There was a rush of movement as numerous figures rushed towards them.

“Fleeee!” cried Peridot, turning and sprinting headlong down the corridor, Jasper and Bismuth giving up the pretext and reverting to their normal forms as the group retreated.

A glance back at the onrushing avian mob and Peridot found herself running harder, even as a corner of her mind reminded her didactically of this conflicting Drill Zero-Thirteen, something so fundamental it had been among the first drills she’d introduced in Connie’s training all those years ago.

 _When making a full retreat, run at full speed regardless. If you look back and start running faster, you’re doing it wrong,_ the pedagogic part of her intoned.

A particularly fast reddish-yellow Pearl caught up with them, going so far as to run briefly along the wall and then kick off to attempt to pounce on Bismuth. Peridot caught it midair with her tractor beam. Too intent on fleeing to do anything more, she tossed it blindly back the way they’d come.

Ahead was a large set of double doors, the ceiling high. Spindashing ahead, Jasper stopped herself by the expediency of simply colliding with them, and then set to hauling on one mightily, a narrow gap opening.

Something that looked suspiciously like a deformed piece of gemtech struck the back of Lapis’ form, narrowly missing her gemstone. If it weren’t for her wings steadying her, she’d have been knocked prone.

Another two projectiles, each misshapen Homeworld baubles, flew past forcing Lapis to take further evasive actions.

A glance back revealed a Pearl so purple it nearly looked black launching stored objects from the stone set in its left shoulder. Apparently corruption meant the stored objects were warped as well but that did little to limit their effectiveness as missiles.

“Gals,” muttered Lapis while performing a tight corkscrew, the corridor wide for walking but narrow for flying. “I’m kind of getting tired fighting Pearls. You think it’s going to be super easy and it never is.”

Shifting one hand into a club, Bismuth batted a Pearl aside only for the figure to dissolve into motes. Decoy successful, the actual Pearl ran at Bismuth from the other side, trying to peck at the gemstone in her chest. Hand becoming a massive scoop on the upswing, she caught and chucked the attacker over her shoulder without slowing down, adding, “They’re feisty alright.”

Reaching the gap in the doors, Peridot dove through, with Lapis unsummoning her wings and effectively plummeting through right after her. The blue gem resummoned her wings just on the other side and pulled into a sharp rise to kill her forward momentum, performing a full loop to avoid the ceiling as well.

By the time Peridot had turned around, she saw Bismuth and Jasper hauling the massive door shut, the latter being pecked and kicked savagely by two Pearls standing atop her shoulders.

The Quartz choose to simply ignore the abuse while she hauled the portal shut.

With a ‘thump’ the door closed and Bismuth turned, delivering a downward slice with a sword arm, poofing one Pearl while Jasper grabbed and poofed the other with a powerful squeeze. Both were bubbled and banished a moment later.

There were bangs and thuds from the other side of the door but the vault-like architecture looked like it could withstand a starship's barrage. Lapis flew over and, with Bismuth’s help, engaged all seven of the lock mechanisms available.

It was a _very_ robust bulwark they had slipped through.

Jasper made a sweep of the area, the damage inflicted to her form already beginning to mend. “Is this it?”

Peridot gawked, taking in the banks and banks of terminals and the twinkle of a warp pad in the room beyond. Nodding, the green gem found a smile, one of the first since they’d embarked on this mission. “Yes. We’ve found our objective: the Ziggurat’s control center.”

* * *

> _The war for Earth was terrible and far-reaching, for all its necessity. But the Earth is vast and there were places where life thrived completely untouched by either war or terraforming. It was in one such spot, an alpine pasture dotted with tiny flower buds, that Rose and I met._
> 
> _It was all I could do not to embrace my better half on sight. I missed her so, no matter how bitter the struggle had grown between our factions. Instead of rushing to her, I rushed to my point._
> 
> _"You can come back, Rose. We can win, together. Please, nothing would make me happier."_
> 
> _Rose looked at me and I do not know how to interpret her expression. Once I knew her as well as she knew herself, the two of us unified in our bond as sisters. That she was a stranger to me now was a sign of how naive, how foundless my optimism was, to think that she could simply come back to our Rebellion._
> 
> _"After decades divided, you want me to come back? Simple as that?" she asked._
> 
> _"Simple as that."_
> 
> _Rose gave me that look again and then turned away. "You have cost the Rebellion dearly, my lost sister."_
> 
> _I shook my head and approached a step, but Rose retreated, maintaining the distance between us. "Homeworld's advance has been halted. It can be turned back. There is still hope, for the Earth, for the gems..." Then, to my long-estranged sister, I whispered, "For your vision."_
> 
> _Rose whirled on me, her expression terrible, sadness and rage warring across her features. "My vision?! You have the gall to claim what you have been doing in the name of_ that _! You- You can't be serious." Where the tears fell from her cheeks, the grass grew and the flowers bloomed._
> 
> _"I do and I am. After you... left, seeing your vision come to pass was one of the only things that kept me going." I advanced another step only for her to, again, retreat. My arms were out, beseeching. "As for my misdeed at our parting, I am sorry. Never again, I swear it. I was desperate and- And I lost hope."_
> 
> _Rose stared at me for another moment before she hung her head, face in her palm. She wept and there was a hysterical edge to it. The flowers below grew larger and sprouted thorns._
> 
> _"That was what kept you going?" she said finally, voice thick with irony. "It was only in saving it from you that I was able to put one foot in front of the other." She laughed and it was a mirthless thing. "What's- What's wrong with us?"_
> 
> _I smiled, I even laughed, unable to help myself. "I know what's wrong with me. I'm not supposed to be without you. You were always the better of us, Rose. I used to feel so small and jealous, always trying and failing to escape your shadow. But I realized, long ago, that I was right where I belonged, beside you. You were the better of us and I would see you succeed."_
> 
> _I took a step forward, small, timid. Rose didn't retreat but nor did she welcome me. The flowers had grown into bushes, angry, pointy things for all their beauty._
> 
> _"I never thought of you like that," she said. "Before, you were always my sister, my dear Citrine."_
> 
> _I gave her a lopsided smile. "Of course you did. You're Rose Quartz. You see the best in everyone and everything."_
> 
> _Rose's expression dropped and the bushes at her feet rose up, interposing themselves between me and their mistress. "I don't in you. Not anymore." Those words would have cut had I not thought them every day since her departure. She looked up and met my eyes. "Your victory would cost the Rebellion its soul. From that bed, nothing of beauty would grow."_
> 
> _I shook my head. "Then cast me out. Ours is not a kind world. It is ugly and messy and it can't be remade into something better without someone getting the stain of it upon them." I took another step forward, my eyes ever on hers. "Let me take that, see your victory to pass, and then cast me out. Grow something beautiful in my place."_
> 
> _Rose gave me that look yet again, like one of mutual incomprehension, or loathing, mixed with disbelief. "If-" Her breath hitched and it was a moment before she could speak again. "If you truly mean that, then I cast you out. Now. Go and I will lead the Rebellion to a victory worthy of its principles."_
> 
> _I stood there, rooted to the spot, torn in two directions. Perhaps this is what Garnet feels when she comes undone. My own experience with fusion was nothing of the sort, but then, my bonds were never as strong as of her Ruby and Sapphire._
> 
> _Eventually, eyes on the ground and eyes squeezed shut, I shook my head. "No. I can't. I don't-"_
> 
> _"You don't think I could win?" finished my better half._
> 
> _I looked at her, expression apologetic. "Not alone, not like you claim. Homeworld is too strong, with pride and resources to dwarf all else. This is not a fight of army against army, it is a fight between our will and the Diamonds'. Break the Diamonds' spirit and the war will be over in a flash. Leave it intact and they will bury us in the shards of the fallen."_
> 
> _“Have you made your choice?” asked Rose, a face which should have been loving grown hard by the pain and disappointment I had inflicted on her._
> 
> _I mopped my eyes but stood as tall as I was able. “Yes. I have.”_
> 
> _“Then you’ve made mine for me.”_
> 
> _Rose cast her scabbard aside and charged me. I was so stunned, our fight was almost concluded in the opening blow._
> 
> _Barely, with emotions screaming, I allowed instincts honed by centuries of conflict to take over. If she wasn't Rose, if she was just an enemy, then this wouldn't hurt so much._
> 
> _We fought. Little of that alpine meadow remained when we finished._
> 
> _My enemy was kneeling, my sword at her throat. Her tears were for more than just her injuries she was healing._
> 
> _With great reluctance I stepped back, from my enemy and from the emotional numbness of combat._
> 
> _She became my Rose, kneeling, crying. It broke my heart all over again to see her reduced to this._
> 
> _"Rose, please, stand. Come back. All will forgive you, and if they don't, I will speak with them myself. There is a war to be won and everyone needs your help._ I _need your help."_
> 
> _Slowly, Rose Quartz stood, that look accompanying it. "Even now you welcome me back?"_
> 
> _"Please?" was all I said._
> 
> _Her expression twisted and there was such malice in her face. It was terrible to behold, Connie. I saw only bitterness in her eyes and then looked down to find her sword buried through my form. After that, oblivion._
> 
> _When I reformed, Rose was gone. Her scabbard remained where it had been cast aside at the start of our fight. On my gemstone was a scratch, too shallow to harm and so the fountain waters do not wash it away._
> 
> _Much later Peridot insisted on scanning my gemstone. She claimed there were fractional stress points, places where the stone had buckled under pressure on the verge of shattering. The scrape, she surmises, was a product of that pressure, a fault line on the precipice of shifting violently, cosmetic now but a constant reminder._
> 
> _I failed Rose. On that distant day the Schism began and the day of our final exchange, I failed her. I am a Citrine, I am designed to triumph and yet I could not win my own sister to my side. Not only did I drive her away, she was brought to the brink of shattering,_ Rose Quartz _. She must have fled and, incautious or too despairing to fight, she was captured by Homeworld._
> 
> _According to Peridot, she is slave to the Diamonds to this day, and worse still, forced to do terrible things to survive under their bleak authority. It must be a ruse, and one that costs her in fractions of herself to maintain. Something beautiful has been tainted and lost, Connie. Such misery have I wrought on my sister, it is almost more than I can bear._
> 
> _I take solace, in the Earth, in peace, in Lapis, Jasper, Peridot, and Doug living within that peace. In Victory and his antics. In the thought of you, Connie. But for me, the term fault line is apt, because it is a line that symbolizes that which is a result of my faults._

Connie set the journal down, blinked, and looked around. This wasn't to take in her surroundings but because it felt like there was so much new information inside her that it was sloshing around. She needed to give it time to settle or she'd- she'd break from a destiny overload or something.

It was a lot to take in: raw information and very raw emotions.

Her mom was... different than she'd expected. Or rather, Connie was meeting the real woman, not the perfect general the gems seemed to remember. And the real Citrine had been... sad.

Her dad was slumped in his folding chair, lightly snoring, a grey-bound book face down in his lap. Steven too was asleep, though he'd burrowed deeper into his sleeping bag, a tuft of curly brown hair poking out the opening along with the sound of slumber.

Connie felt herself smile, a wave of cuteness making her forget for two seconds just how heavy her brain and heart were.

Wolf, lying down but head raised, was looking at her, eyes intent.

She held his gaze for several seconds. "Victory?" she asked him.

His gaze dropped to Connie's gemstone for a moment but his expression didn't otherwise change.

"Wolf?" she asked instead.

He opened his mouth and panted though, mindful of the sleepers, didn't bark.

"Wolf it is then," answered Connie softly, smiling in response.

Seeing Wolf's neck reminded her of the pocket space within, which caused something from her reading to click into focus. Connie's eyes went wide, her expression fell, and a hand went to her gemstone.

"Bismuth, the Breaking Point, and the journal were mom's biggest regrets. And they were in your pocket dimension which meant-"

 _A hollow Victory filled with regret,_ Connie finished silently.

Her head hung low, she caressed the paper of the journal like she would a person's cheek. "Oh, mom. Wow. You were really hurting," she muttered softly.

 _And had a flair for the melodramatic,_ a churlish corner of Connie remarked before being shushed by the others.

Staring at the page a little longer, Connie heaved a sigh, shook her head, and then resumed reading.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone felt like drawing the shapeshifted/disguised Jasper, Lapis, Bismuth, and Peridot, I think that'd be pretty dang awesome.
> 
> EDIT: NeonJohn answered the call! Thanks NeonJohn! You're the best and you did fantastic work!  
> 


	5. Final Conflict

“These terminals are in unusually good condition,” breathed Peridot as she examined the contents of the control room.

Jasper stood a little ways distant where she could keep an eye on both the warp pad room and the heavy doors they’d entered through. There were the occasional thuds and muffled chirps from beyond but it looked like the Pearl menace was no longer an immediate threat.

“The Ziggurat withstood the war,” said the Quartz simply, her explanation terse but hardly inaccurate.

Lapis, meanwhile, was flitting about, gawking at the murals decorating the warp chamber walls. Also visible were tattered pink curtains in places and the ceiling was a coiled shape of some matte black material.

Another gem ruin for Lapis to fawn over… if, perhaps less accessible than most.

Bismuth was standing at one of the terminals, large fingers paging through data. “I haven’t found the orbital array’s controls yet. Have you, Green?”

Peridot shook her head. “Negative, but in the interest of making a safe withdrawal, I have begun investigating the status of the local warp pad.”

There was a heavy thud at the doors behind them.

“Good idea,” conceded the smith. “I don’t think leaving through the front door is an option.”

Lapis, from the room over, prodded the warp pad with her foot. “Seems intact. Also, Dot, you gotta look at these when we’re done saving the world-slash-not living through the musical version of Hitchcock’s _The Birds_.” She gestured at an expanse of wall. “I think this one’s about the Diamonds sending Pink Diamond help for the colony. Speaking as one such loaner, I’m glad PD didn’t try to do it all in-house.”

“Does that mean there’s a late fee for your return?” asked Jasper with a hint of a smirk. 

The others stopped what they were doing and looked at her.

“Connie’s and my book club,” explained the Quartz, adding, “Librarians are surprisingly fierce.”

Bismuth chuckled. “I think for Blue they’d probably pay us _not_ to return her.”

A raspberry was Lapis’ retort.

Ignoring the banter of her peers, Peridot said, “I have ascertained that the local warp pad is functional, merely decoupled from warp space. A crude but effective way of ensuring no one gains entry via warp network hacking. Given the considerable amount of time this pad has been decoupled, bringing it into proper alignment will take approximately thirty-four minutes. I will continue to search for orbital array control files while this progresses.”

Bismuth nodded absently and poked something at her terminal, a garbled holographic display appearing, accompanied by a much clearer audio recording.

“Lunar Diamond base, confirm arrival of last evacuees,” said a calm voice that radiated command. The hologram was a jittery mess but the coloration was overwhelmingly black.

“Received, Ziggurat,” said a voice that had a tremor to it, like someone trying to hold panic at bay. “Wait, last? You need to get out of there. The Diamonds are-”

The garbled black hologram cut her off. “I am aware. Yellow Diamond invited me to withdrawal, _alone,_ and I have respectfully declined.”

“Invi- What?! That was an order. From _Yellow Diamond!”_ The near-panic was now laced with incredulity. “The attack is happening any minute now and you’re going to ignore a Diamond to stay on a Rebel-held world with a bunch of Pearls?!”

There was an imperious tone to the commanding gem’s voice, a hint of ire beneath the calm. “Only Pink Diamond can order me from my post.”

“Wha- She can’t!”

“Nor would she, not absent my darlings,” came the reply. Then, in a far milder, even affectionate tone, she said, “Thank you all. You may return to the ballroom. I will finish the final preparations myself.”

A chorus of lyrical voices answered, “Yes, my Onyx.”

“Z-Ziggurat, this is Lunar Diamond base. Uh, your comms are still active.”

“I’m aware,” came the calm voice of the darkened hologram. “I’m broadcasting the orbital array’s control parameters. You will need them if you hope to-”

Just then the hologram flared to brilliance and there was a wave of sound that rocked over the four gems in the control center.

Peridot’s thoughts scattered as an aural wrecking ball crashed through them.

“Ziggurat. Ziggurat! This is Lunar Diamond base. Do you read? Do you-” and the audio ended abruptly.

Peridot was on the floor, vision slowing coming back into focus. It was only because of the display in her HUD that she could tell three minutes had passed.

“Whoa,” muttered Bismuth, the large smith similarly rising from prone. “That made a punch from Garnet feel like a love tap. What was it?”

As Peridot’s higher functions timidly crept out from hiding like scolded robonoids, a suspicion began to form. But first she would need data. “Bismuth, what recording was that?”

Bismuth was crouched over Jasper, the Quartz lying catatonic on the floor, staring blankly at the ceiling. In the distance Lapis was in a similar state.

The smith looked over. “What? That was the latest stored transmission. I thought it might have something helpful, or at least give us good laugh hearing some upper crusts panicking.”

She reached down and shook Jasper by the shoulders, the gem only just beginning to stir. “I didn’t expect it to be another trap,” she finished.

Peridot steadied herself on the terminal nearest her, thoughts whirling. Now that she wasn’t being bludgeoned audibly by it, the comparison was unmistakable. And given the timing and events depicted, that would mean-

“Bismuth!” exclaimed Peridot. “What we have is an audio recording of the Corruption Event! This is unprecedented! No such record has been found intact despite there being thousands of recording devices active on Earth at the time. It clearly offered no protection for the gems within, but perhaps the Ziggurat’s metallo-ceramic walls helped shield the electronics?”

In the distance Lapis groaned and clutched her head.

Bismuth looked at Peridot, confusion giving way to surprised understanding. “The wha- You mean- But why did it sound like that janked song those three Pearls were singing?” stammered the smith while she helped Jasper unsteadily to her feet.

“Because the Pearl corruptions were repeating the song that heralded the end of their sapience.” Peridot was pacing now, thoughts awhirl. “And the song must inherently interfere with gem cognizance because, even absent the Diamonds’ power, the mere melody was impairing our mental faculties in idiosyncratic ways. It’s a kind of memetic destabilizer.”

Lapis came staggering in, her mallet extended and used as a crutch. She and Jasper seemed to have been hit especially hard by the effect. “So corruption is a song that gets stuck in your head and drives you insane?” muttered the blue gem.

“Broadly speaking, yes!”

“Then I guess _Bananaphone_ was by them too,” drawled the hydrokinetic. Cradling her head in one blue hand she added, “I’m just saying, has anyone seen Raffi and Yellow Diamond in the same room as each other?”

“I didn’t like that,” said Jasper in a low voice, drawing herself back to her full height, her bare arm gripping her sleeved arm tightly.

Peridot was about to conjecture further, opine about how this could assist in understanding the mechanisms of corruption and maybe even aid in devising a treatment or cure… when a singing began.

It was muffled by the door but enough voices were joined to be heard regardless. It wasn’t the song of corruption, as they had been subjected to by the Pearl trio guarding the Ziggurat’s outermost layer. Instead it was a soaring choral piece, like a sunrise set to music.

Jasper’s eyes went wide.

“You know this tune, OJ?” asked Lapis.

“The Pearls sang it to announce Pink Diamond.”

Meanwhile, Bismuth’s head was cocked to one side while she stared off into the middle distance. “Hey, if that Onyx didn’t evacuate like we thought, where-” was as far as she got before her eyes jumped up into a look to match Jasper’s.

Following the large gems’ gaze, Peridot saw the matte black ‘ceiling’ of the warp chamber descending in one long, languid coil. The chitinous serpentine form of the corrupted gem seemed to just. Keep. Coming down.

Finally an eyeless head larger than Jasper came into view, framed by a pair of jagged forelimbs that looked capable of sundering steel. Along the serpentine bulk, dozens of insect-like limbs unfolded, the corrupted commander roused by the song of its Pearls when no other sound had disturbed it.

“Wow, she’s a big gal,” said the smith, one hand becoming a bladed weapon. “Okay, lay it on me: how do we fight a corrupted Onyx?”

Peridot, Jasper, and Lapis all shared a look, the latter saying, “The heck if we know.”

“What?! But what about the Onyx twins that wouldn’t stop flirting with Raindrop?” exclaimed Bismuth.

Peridot gave Lapis a pointed look. “Yes. What _about_ them?”

“NOT THE TIME,” barked Lapis.

Jasper advanced a step, the Onyx stooping slightly to look at them eyelessly through the opening. “We never found them. Shattered, taken off-world. Don’t know.”

The Onyx tried to advance, the horn-like growth at the top of its form rasping against the ceiling as it did.

“Just fight it and don’t get shattered!” bellowed Jasper as she charged the creature headlong.

Bismuth shrugged, her other hand shifting into a large hammer to join the sword. “Can’t argue with that advice.” Then she gave a loud cry of her own and ran into the fray.

As the massive corrupted Onyx peered through the opening into the control room, Jasper collided with it like an orange wrecking ball, helmet summoned.

She punched the large chitinous face of the thing, a haymaker blow that made Peridot wince from the sound of impact, then came up with a kind of rising headbutt or helmet-delivered uppercut that saw the corrupted gem's head slam into the control room ceiling.

Bismuth, meanwhile advanced. "Poundy or slicey?" she asked, then raked her sword arm ineffectively across the creature's armored forelimb. "Poundy it is," and she brought her hammer arm down in a blow the Onyx, from the way it flinched and swung blindly in the smith's direction, certainly felt.

A few plasma blasts peppered its flank to modest effect.

Finding the comparatively low-ceilinged control center poor ground to fight, the Onyx withdrew into the warp pad room. It reared back, rising up out of easy reach for Jasper, still parrying Bismuth's assault.

"Hey, don't go poofing tall, dark, and fugly without me," shouted Lapis, the gem winging forward out of the control room, mallet held in a one-handed grip that would be impractical were it not hydrokinetically assisted.

Finding Bismuth too strong to overpower and impale with its forelimb and finding Jasper difficult to crush with its bulk, the Onyx whipped backward with surprising speed for its size, like a snake preparing to strike. Instead of lunging forward, however, it opened its large maw and roared.

Jasper's helmet vanished in the wave of sound and with a heave, the Onyx was able to toss the Quartz away with casual ease.

Bismuth was mid-swing when the noise washed over her and her maul-arm reverted into a fist. The sudden shift in balance spun her around, meaning she was unprepared when Jasper collided with her, the two half-flying, half-toppling across the room in a tangle of limbs.

Lapis gave what looked like a cry of surprise --her voice drowned out by the corruption's bellow-- and pinwheeled her arms as the wings at her back dissolved into puddles. The mallet in her arm dropped too and gem and weapon fell roughly on the floor, damp and discombobulated.

Peridot braced herself for some dramatic effect and felt... nothing.

As the noise died down, the Pearl chorus outside the door swelled back to audibility.

Lapis staggered to her feet, then tried and failed to lift the heavy, water-filled mallet. "Hey gals, I think reality just broke, or at least the part of it where I'm awesome. Can we fix that because I'd really like that fixed." She had to abandon her weapon to avoid being impaled when the Onyx lashed out.

Disentangling themselves, Jasper rose up then ran forward. The Onyx saw this coming and swiped out, batting the Quartz casually aside. When Jasper struck the mural-decorated wall, there was a sharp exhalation and a groan of pain; not something normally heard coming from the perfect warrior.

Bismuth stared at her arms expectantly, then had to duck a swipe, diving sideways towards a smashed in section of the warp chamber wall. "Gals, I'm not able to shapeshift." She reached down, grabbed a bit of rubble, and chucked it at the corrupted gem, the stone doing little more than draw its attention. "I don't suppose anyone brought a glaive with them just in case?"

An arc of electricity raked across the Onyx, Peridot's primary limb enhancer humming from the discharge. The attack did minimal damage to the foe but did serve to draw its attention from the suddenly disarmed Bismuth. "Evade and distract," barked Peridot. "When the warp pad completes its alignment, we can escape."

Across the room, Jasper rose unsteadily to her feet, a constellation of injuries scattered across her form. "The orbital controls. Need to fight."

"Jasper!" exclaimed Lapis, peering around the command center wall she'd dove behind for cover. "You're hurt!"

The Quartz, teeth grit, tried to reenter the fray but a leg with a visible laceration gave out underneath her and she dropped to one knee.

One of Bismuth's fingertips became a knife. "Hey! It's starting to come b-"

The Onyx roared, head swinging across the chamber, shouting ire at each of its foes.

The knife-finger vanished. "Nevermind," muttered the smith before she half-dodged, half-fell backwards through the hole in the wall to avoid being bisected.

"This is foolhardy!" cried Peridot. "We need to retreat!"

A talon raked in her vicinity, tearing a panel free from one of the terminals in the process. It was superficial abuse but a clear reminder that there was more that could be damaged in the control center than just her and Lapis.

"I'm with Jaz," called Bismuth, her voice echoing from within the room beyond. "We just need to stop flailing like a bunch of P-" There was a pause and then the unseen smith amended, "A bunch of Zircons and finish the fight."

Peridot was about to deliver her thesis explaining why exactly the others were impaired but, as the sole undiminished Crystal Gem, it was requiring the whole of her focus (and the full capabilities of her primary limb enhancer) to keep the corruption too distracted to finish off her comrades.

Fortunately, Lapis gasped and said, "This Onyx is a screamer too!"

Bismuth emerged from the room with what looked like a curtain rod and was using it to jab at the Onyx. "Come again?"

The Onyx bit two thirds of the rod in half, spitting the material aside as the corruption forced Bismuth to retreat once more through the opening into what Peridot was suspecting was the gem's former office.

A pile of tractor beamed debris slammed into the Onyx, forcing it to relent.

"The no-fun-powers zone," continued Lapis. "This one hits you with it when it roars."

"The negation seems to include-" And Peridot had to pause, delivering a plasma blast into the beast's open flank to keep it from returning its attention to the badly weakened Quartz. "-To encompass heightened physical features in addition to more overt power usage. Bismuth's strength and Jasper's resilience, as relevant examples."

"Vacuum?" grunted out Jasper, the Quartz inching along the room's walls, presumably so she could flank the beast... as soon as she recovered enough to even stand.

Bismuth returned with a broken piece of furniture as a club. "Nope. The pneumatics were just for the tra-AAH!"

Club batted aside, the Onyx jabbed Bismuth with its impaling forelimb and it was only because the smith fell through the opening that she wasn't pinned to the wall like an insect in a display.

After a couple of seconds ignoring Peridot's barrage to try and swipe at Bismuth, the Pearl choir grew quiet, the Diamond processional song completed. With it, the Onyx slowed, grew less aggressive, and retreated to the center of the room.

Jasper tried to attack and was, for a third time, hurled casually aside, the Onyx unfocused but far from helpless.

There was a swell and the song began again, the massive corruption resuming its offensive with a mighty roar.

Something clicked and Peridot gave an involuntary gasp of recognition.

"I sure hope that's a brilliant idea, Dot, because I'm down to manual hydrokinesis over here," and with that Lapis chucked her water-filled canteen at the beast. "Hate splashing in the kiddie pool," she added at a mutter.

"Bismuth. Jasper. I need you to find or fashion a parabolic dish!" the technician shouted, drawing the Onyx's attention in the process.

A rainbow-haired figure peered cautiously out through the collapsed wall. "Uh, sure Green. We'll figure something out."

Peridot addressed the Onyx directly. "You wouldn't leave them. You couldn't conscience it even when your world was being overrun by opponents and a doom from on high approached. Your Pearls were too important to you so you stayed: to be with them and to fight _for_ them, even when you had to know the struggle would be impossible."

The speech earned Peridot a claw swipe that cracked the ground where she'd been standing.

Moving a little deeper into the command center, Peridot looked over at the terminals, with their promise of an orbital invasion deterrence and a clue to the enigma that was corruption. She looked over at Lapis, who appeared to be trying and failing to summon her water-filled mallet to her location. She looked down at the star emblazoned across her outfit, the yellow reminding her of the ward she had too long been apart from.

"I understand. I believe I am in a similar position myself." One tethered finger snaked out, attaching to the end of the other. Then the whole thing crackled, not unlike Connie's sword but with destabilizing energy instead of galvanic potential. "Which is why I must see you defeated."

Peridot's floating fingers configured into helicopter mode but rather than flying into the air, she held them out in front of her, being pulled swiftly across the room. At breakneck speed, she accelerated, dodging one hit and then another, each blow heavy enough to make the floor shake with the impact.

Hurtling past her opponent, Peridot swung out with her destabilizer, a basketball-sized chunk of chitin gouged out of an impaling forelimb.

As Peridot had warned Connie when skirmishing with Malachite, an opponent that size would only be harmed, not poofed, by a conventional destabilizer attack. If Connie were present to overcharge the limb enhancer it would be different, but given present circumstances, this fight could only be swiftly lost, not swiftly won.

The Onyx, with a speed that belied its bulk, pivoted and roared at Peridot, the sound made louder from proximity.

Once the noise abated, Peridot adjusted the glasses that had slipped down her nose and said, "You'll find that effect quite wasted on me." She swung out and scored a line across the beast's jaw. "You can't negate what doesn't exist."

A claw plunged towards her, which Peridot fended off, the crackling energy of her secondary enhancer leaving a curl of black smoke as a swath of corrupted form was dissipated. 

Lapis raised a hand to her face and opened her mouth to shout... when Bismuth hollered, "Nice Parry, Dot!"

This prompted Lapis to cry, "Hey! No stepping on my lines!"

A section of the beast's forelimb may have been dissipated but mass and inertia weren't and the blow spun Peridot around in a sickening lurch. It was only with another lateral helicopter flight that Peridot missed the follow up attack from her oversized opponent.

Jasper was hauling on a large piece of rubble --preparing a throw like she had done repeatedly in the Ziggurat's outer layer-- when the Onyx roared at the evading Peridot. Wounded, weakened, and suddenly unable to support the object, Jasper toppled sideways, her own would-be projectile nearly landing on her.

While gems didn't have a limbic system and therefore lacked adrenaline, the rush of combat swept through Peridot, the gem laughing with equal parts thrill and fear. "Nyahaha! Fear my technological superiority!" yelled the green gem, wheeling around and carving a sizable divot out of the beast's flank, several lesser, chitinous limbs taken in the blow.

With a roar, of pain rather than rage, the corruption's insect-like hind section flailed, batting Peridot across the warp chamber. She kept going, tossed into the control room and sliding a few yards across the floor.

The Pearl choir, muffled by the heavy doors but undeterred, sang on. It was a paean originally intended for a Diamond, now sung for the gem they held no less dearly.

Slowly, mental and physical processes catching up to recent events, Peridot rose to her feet. The Onyx was finding movement more difficult absent some of its limbs but had managed to reorient to face the only foe that seemed able to threaten it.

Beyond it, Peridot saw a wave, Bismuth signaling her while she and Jasper held up a mangled sheet of metal hammered crudely into a bowl shape, probably four feet in diameter. What it had been originally was beyond Peridot's imaginings.

The Onyx lashed out, long claw raking the control center interior. A terminal squealed in distress as sparks sprayed out, the gouged out section hurtling towards Peridot's form.

"Gah!" cried the technician, her earlier bravado forgotten. It was only at the last possible second she was able to reconfigure her primary limb enhancer and catch the projectile in the green glow of her tractor beam less than a foot from her chest.

Eyeing it, Peridot laughed nervously, as much from relief as anything else. Then, mimicking what she'd seen Citrine do countless times when throwing her galvanized gem weapon, Peridot wheeled in a hammer throw and lobbed the broken section of terminal at the Onyx, releasing the tractor beam so the projectile arced into the corruption's eyeless face.

Smiling, advancing with martial intent to the edge of the warp chamber, Peridot opened her mouth to taunt... when Bismuth hollered, "Talk about terminal velocity!"

Peridot and Lapis both shouted at Bismuth for stealing lines yet again.

The Onyx shook its head and upper body, withdrawing and reorienting, hindquarters clumsy as insect legs scrabbled to compensate for their lost numbers.

Then it reared back, mouth opening: the telltale sign of another roar. Ready for this opportunity, Peridot grabbed up the parabolic dish with her tractor beam and repositioned it inches away from the beast's face.

The Onyx roared... at itself, the majority of the sound and effect reflected back.

Suddenly it was too weak to hold itself upright, an unnatural form kept upright only through inhuman strength. It sagged forward. Its impaling claws caught the floor like crutches, the only thing keeping the Onyx from collapsing entirely.

Pointing her tractor beam aside, crude parabolic dish hovering in an aura of green, Peridot stalked forward. "Homeworld will come," she said simply, if loudly. She swung her destabilizer like a woodsman's ax, severing the bottom third of one claw. The Onyx sagged lower with a pained noise.

"At this point it is inevitable." Another swing, another length of claw rendered into black smoke, the Onyx drooping lower still.

"And even with this orbital array, we may very well be overwhelmed." The destabilizer carved still more of the claw away.

"But to simply let my allies perish, to let _Connie_ perish, would shatter me as surely as any combat." With a jab and a swipe, the forelimb was dissipated entirely, the Onyx face-to-face with the green gem.

"With no other recourse left, I choose to fight!" shouted the Era-2.

With a heave, perhaps recovering a portion of its lost strength or perhaps driven by desperation, the Onyx lunged forward, enormous mouth open wide to snap its implacable foe in half.

There was a cry of warning and surprise from the other Crystal Gems.

The jaws came down on the parabolic dish, which Peridot swung into the swiftly closing maw. The obstacle crunched but did not break, the Onyx too weak to crush it and the green gem beyond.

"I choose to fight," repeated the technician to her foe. "I cannot blame you for doing the same, but nor can I allow you to stand in my way."

Like the fall of an executioner's ax, the destabilizer carved away until, form too battered to be sustained, there was an eruption of black smoke. The sounds of a gemstone and a crushed chunk of metal falling to the floor rang out.

Voice by voice, the choir fell silent. If the Pearls beyond understood what had happened, if they expressed their loss in some way, it wasn't heard by those within.

* * *

>   
>  _Bismuth resides within Victory's internal realm. Bismuth and the weapon she forged._
> 
> _With Rose lost to me and forced to serve the Diamonds, the war resumed more bitter than before. But with nothing else to hold to, I gave my all to see the Earth triumphant._
> 
> _Bismuth is as true a rebel as any, with a faith so powerful she somehow imparted a measure of that to Lapis. She is a fast friend, a fierce foe, gregarious and beloved in a way that reminded me so much of Rose in kinder days. She is also inventive in a way few gems are, and one day she showed me her greatest invention._
> 
> _The Breaking Point: a weapon that could shatter any gem, even a Diamond. With that, I could enact my plan with the stain of shattering solely on my hands. I could hasten the end of the war and, with it, end the pain and violence the flowed from it._
> 
> _Bismuth is passionate to a fault. She wanted to see the Breaking Point mass-produced, see every rebel so-armed and shattering the Diamond Authority until all that remained were liberated gems wading through the shards._
> 
> _I ordered her to give me the weapon and not speak of it again. I would do the deed and not sully the soul of the Rebellion one iota more than needed._
> 
> _She refused._
> 
> _In Bismuth I saw another Rose. And like Rose, she had the capacity to split the Rebellion once more. She was well-loved and the promise of her Breaking Points would appeal to many, for war is hard on mind and body and to some, any peace was worth it, even if it was littered with the remains of fellow gems._
> 
> _The Rebellion couldn't survive a second Schism; it had hardly survived the one._
> 
> _I struck Bismuth down. I bubbled her and lied that she had been lost at one of the most stalwart of Homeworld's bastions here on Earth: the Ziggurat. Before I had Victory, I hid Bismuth where I hoped no one else would find her. After Victory, I hid her where I knew no one else could. No one, that is, save you._
> 
> _I will say more on the matter, but I get ahead of my own tale._
> 
> _With Bismuth's Breaking Point, I set Jasper and Lapis in charge of a diversionary attack, a great assault containing the bulk of the rebel forces. It was a lure impossible for Homeworld to ignore._
> 
> _My former Diamond had been waylaid by her older sisters, marginalized by degrees until she was confined to lavish quarters, denied nothing save self-determination. The terminals gleamed like they were newly installed, the tapestries were secured firmly in place, and the statues looked to have been rebuilt. I have since wondered if my Diamond did not take to her confinement gracefully. It is both difficult and all too easy to envision her raging within the confines of her gilded cage._
> 
> _Regardless, even with the Homeworld's attention elsewhere, it was difficult to infiltrate her palatial cell, especially since I could not carry material things like the Breaking Point while insubstantial._
> 
> _It is a troublesome limitation as often as it is a boon, as I'm sure you're aware._
> 
> _When I met my Diamond, she received me with calm eyes. Within her chamber was a sphere that would allow her to see many places within what was nominally her colony. I suspect to this day that, if she noticed my approach, she did nothing to impede it._
> 
> _"Hello Citrine. You finally came."_
> 
> _You would think she was welcoming a guest, one arrived too late to be easily excused. She held herself with regal bearing but the light and energy of the Diamond I once remembered was dimmed almost beyond notice._
> 
> _I stepped out of the shadows I had been hiding in. "Did Rose warn you?" I looked around. "Is she here?"_
> 
> _My Diamond shook her head. "Warn me? Many times, though not for this encounter. She saw you lurking in many shadows, your sister, and was fearful." She leaned back into her palanquin, at ease despite it all. "She is not here, though I suspect she'll rush here in time. Whether she's here_ in time _, though, is up to you."_
> 
> _"What do you mean?" Despite spending centuries opposing her will, it was all too easy for me to fall into the familiar patter between us. There had been a time when Rose and I had asked endless questions of Diamond, to her amusement and delight._
> 
> _"You are here to shatter me, of course. Will Rose Quartz find me intact or in pieces?" She leaned forward, chin resting on her palms, elbows in her lap. "You and your sister have gone farther than I ever could have predicted." She sighed wearily. "It is a wonderful and terrible legacy I have wrought."_
> 
> _I shook my head. "Gemkind can reach heights beyond what the Diamonds have ordained for it, and that future need not be paved with planetary husks and genocide. I am here to make sure our people will have that opportunity, that choice." I tried to be bold in the face of her, but I do not know if I carried it well._
> 
> _"Yes, choice. It has ever been your slogan, hasn't it? And Rose's is love. I didn't design that, by the way, that particular bit of your duality." She sighed again, ensconced in the cushions of her lavish cell. "No, you two came up with it on your own."_
> 
> _Then, unhurried and gracefully, my Diamond rose from her palanquin and walked towards me. "I am giving you precisely what you say you want, and it is possibly the cruelest thing I could do." She stopped only yards away, her expression wry. "I'm sure you understand why I don't feel bad about that last part."_
> 
> _Clutching the Breaking Point, I stood my ground. "You will give me... choice?" I hazarded._
> 
> _She nodded, my Diamond. "Indeed. You can make this choice._ Must _make this choice, my dear, rebellious child. Either way, you are deciding the fate of billions across countless worlds. What will become of Earth? What will become of gemkind if it is left with only my sisters to rule it?" She leaned forward conspiratorially and said in a carrying whisper, "If any of them had an original idea worth getting excited about, it was before my time."_
> 
> _I resisted the urge to meet her smile with my own, if only just. Instead, I raised the Breaking Point. "Will you not fight?"_
> 
> _"I won't. You hold a power only a Diamond has ever held before. Have your choice and may it bring you as much happiness as it has me," she said, her voice bitter, her eyes, tired._
> 
> _I shattered her, without her lifting a finger to stop me. It was surreal and heinous, terrible in a way centuries of war could not prepare me for. My Diamond had cleverness to spare, even in her final moments, even in her cruelty._
> 
> _As I predicted, the Diamonds were terrible and reckless in their grief. My rebels met them confidently and decisively, fighting when success was possible and vanishing when it was not. After the Diamonds’ vehemence cooled, they were left with only their vengeance._
> 
> _Homeworld was in retreat, every gem of import being evacuated. The lesser soldiers were turned forth in a great surge, thousands of Rubies and Quartzes loosed in massive fusions to guard the retreat, told to hold the line while a counterattack of untold magnitude was prepared._
> 
> _It was one of the few times I consented to fusion, Jasper, Lapis, and I fighting the titanic fusions of Homeworld as Selenite. Whatever the Diamonds' secret and terrible retaliation, we wanted to meet it with the fullness of our own power._
> 
> _Then, in the sky, came White Diamond's ship. I have never known her to leave Homeworld and even Lapis, ancient that she is, recalls few such occasions. She was joined by Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond and as the battle raged across Earth, they unleashed a great light and a great sound. I can scarcely recall either and it is a lucky thing, for all who do can remember little else, their minds and bodies warped into the sad, corrupted things you see today._
> 
> _None were spared in the corruption attack, rebel or loyalist. Garnet survived somehow and she will not share her tale, though I am confident it was escape and not a cure; she mourns our fallen as keenly as anyone and would not keep_ that _a secret._
> 
> _Rose is, in her way, even harder to poof than flawless, implacable Jasper, because her powers will restore her form almost as fast as she can be harmed. She has sway over the body, the material._
> 
> _Our gemstone, Connie, has sway over the mind, the immaterial. And so we are fortified against assaults of the mind, which the Diamonds' corruption is, first and foremost. Once the mind is corrupted, only then does the body follow._
> 
> _Jasper and Lapis were afflicted, their thoughts a cacophony. I was, barely, able to hold us together as Selenite, even as I felt the corruption raging within._
> 
> _You, my dear, part-human daughter, may be immune to corruption. I don't know. But I am not. Only resistant; resilient in the face of it like no other gem. As Selenite, I fled to my sanctuary, a place that bolsters my powers and brings relief to those within it._
> 
> _I don't recall much from that panicked retreat, but the horn marks left in the entryway are proof enough it was no delicate arrival._
> 
> _There, I released Lapis and Jasper from our fusion and, swift as I could, poofed and bubbled them to try and arrest corruption's progression. And then, I stayed within my sanctuary and waged a war within myself._
> 
> _I do not know how long I was there, but I know it was no short time. Months? Years? Longer still? But finally I emerged intact, the wounds of corruption undone within me, though it had been no sure thing._
> 
> _For a time, I rested, unable to do more._
> 
> _Finally I turned to Lapis and Jasper. I was able to reverse the corruption in them but only because they had shared a measure of my resistance while fused, only because they had been caught in the earliest stages of its grip._
> 
> _Restored, the three of us began to pick up the pieces. The Earth had been spared Homeworld but was now given over to its monstrous survivors._
> 
> _It was a terrible victory, Pyrrhic or nearly so, and far from the glorious vision I sought. In my choices I may have doomed the Earth, my rebels, and many of my foes to millennia of chaos and woe. As my Diamond said, it is terrible burden to bear._
> 
> _But flawed though I was, there was a victory. The Earth remains, organic life persists, and time and effort have seen the pain of corruption diminished. Humanity thrives and, when we can, Lapis, Jasper, Peridot, and I rejoice._
> 
> _Doug makes it all the sweeter, helping me to see, like Rose once did, the marvels in front of me. He is impressive in many ways._
> 
> _Long ago, before the Rebellion, Rose had an outrageous idea that she shared with me one day, an idea of a gem bearing a human, perhaps even becoming one, and what a marvel that would be. She had the most terrible name for this hypothetical daughter of hers, a silly thing to remember something of such import by, but because of Nora it remained with me._
> 
> _I have since had a long, long time to contemplate her idea and have decided to do this, the last choice I will ever make. And soon I will have you, or rather, you will be and I will not._
> 
> _It is a bittersweet thing, this impossible divide between us, Connie. Bittersweet as so much is surrounding me, but it is my fervent hope that you can find a better way, your own way, into whatever future awaits._
> 
> _If I could give you only one thing, it would be that: the freedom to choose, without my legacy imposing on you. But you are here, reading this, so it means that my powers are your powers and with them, my obligations are your obligations._
> 
> _For that I am sorry, as I fear they are a burdensome weight._
> 
> _But I want to give you what information I can to make it bearable, that your choices may be wise ones._
> 
> _After the war, I cared for Jasper and Lapis as I did during. It seemed cruel for the victory that they fought so hard for, sacrificed so much to achieve, would be met with despair and woe._
> 
> _Peridot, when Lapis brought her to us, found the adjustment to life on Earth a difficult one. For her too I have done what I could, though without the burdens of war she needs it less. It is from that observation that I first had hope you might flourish where I have not._
> 
> _The choice is yours, of course, but I hope you will continue to look after Lapis, Jasper, and Peridot. As I said of Lapis, they have earned every second of peace and happiness there is to be had._
> 
> _I tried for many centuries to find a cure or treatment for corruption and have had no meaningful success, Lapis and Jasper excepted. The remaining Diamonds may be able to reverse its effects, as it originated from them, but they are hardly likely to assist. I did have limited success using my own powers in conjunction with Rose's tears; they are potent and capable of healing well beyond what the waters of her fountain can achieve. However, they are precious and in vanishingly short supply, so I had to discontinue that line of research._
> 
> _A most fortuitous byproduct of that experimentation, however, was Victory. He is a good boy who has served me faithfully and must serve you as well if you have found this place. His body is imbued with Rose's power and his mind is imbued with my own. He is helpful, amusing, and capable of many things. Trust him and care for him well._
> 
> _Do not, however, let him anywhere near Rose. Like all of Rose's creations, his first allegiance would be to her. But his mind belongs to me and now, you. I have no idea what having mind and body to be at odds with one another would do to Victory but I would not chance his well-being on it._
> 
> _Furthermore, unless, somehow, you trust Rose_ completely _, if there is ever a tree in Victory's internal realm CHOP IT DOWN._
> 
> _Rose and I have many hidden powers and, to my knowledge she has never discovered this one. But if she were to, you must take no chances or it could endanger the Earth itself._
> 
> _Umbra sleeps within the quarry outside Beach City. She is linked to the sanctuary: she would not exist without it, and it would not function without her. She becomes restless as she grows so please purge her regularly. And be warned that there is a fault in the sanctuary mechanisms which you must manually adjust after you do, else the negative energy will spill out and disturb the gems finding solace with its boundary._
> 
> _Keep Victory and Umbra apart, though Victory should know better than to go near her._
> 
> _Think long on what to do with Bismuth. Even in peace I could not bear to release her. At the time it was for fear that she would seek to shatter the corrupted gems in retaliation, and that she might upset the delicate happiness Jasper, Lapis, and I were able to find amidst the grim work of bubbling our maddened peers._
> 
> _Now, with the clarity of time and my approaching end, I realize I kept her hidden for my sake more than anyone's. What happened to her, and what her weapon enabled me to do are two things I regret bitterly even as I stand by my decisions. With both hidden within Victory, the weight of those regrets was less. It is a poor excuse but it is an honest one. Released, she may be a tremendous friend or a terrible cause of grief and discord._
> 
> _Lastly, I grieve for Rose and her plight. If you can, please help her. With the Earth safe and me gone, she may yet find a measure of the happiness I, to my shame, have denied her._
> 
> _Be cautious. Identify your flaws, for your sake and the sake of those precious to you. Find those you can trust and listen to them. Happiness is most often found in others, through their betterment and in the reflection of their own happiness._
> 
> _I love you, Connie, even though I have never and will never meet you. I love you and, for what you have read, I am sorry._

Connie stared at the journal for a second longer, then, blinking back a tear, closed it gently. She brought the journal to her chest and hugged it to herself, stretching out this singular moment. The barrier between her and Citrine was unbreachable but here, now, it was as thin as it had ever been and might ever be.

There was a lot for her to process, a lot for her to think about: the merit of her mother’s choices during and after the war, Rose Quartz and how to interpret her behavior, the _unsettling_ similarities between some of Citrine’s actions and those the evil, alternate timeline Connie had been accused of, what Connie ought to do in relation to her mother’s legacy or if she even had a choice beside taking it as her own, just to name the first that sprang to mind.

But that was for later.

Her mother had loved her and, for now, that was enough.


	6. Epilogue

Peridot scowled at the bank of assorted cathode ray tube displays, then at the data streaming to her limb enhancers. Crawling under the bathroom/command center sink, she flipped onto her back and examined the components that were lit by the glow of her gemstone.

Using her tethered fingers as voltmeter probes, she was able to track down the fault and repair it. It was warm, being tucked into the command center's infrastructure. Were Peridot human she would likely be sweating profusely.

Fortunately gems, even Era-2s, were spared that indignity.

Scrabbling free, she checked her displays yet again. The signal was weaker than she'd prefer but the electronic handshake was unmistakable: they were in communication with the orbital array.

Now to ascertain how intact it was and affect the necessary repairs.

In the Beach House proper there was a 'whoosh' followed by the trill of the fire detection system. Sighing, Peridot engaged the manual override. After all-

"Sorry, Green! Must have brushed a wire accidentally."

-Bismuth wasn't flammable.

Closing up the command center panels, Peridot stepped out of the bathroom and saw Bismuth patting out a few errant fires on her form. 

The gem looked over and smiled. "That flamethrower mechanism on the oven is feisty."

"Which is precisely why we must disable it and several of the other more, erm, militant renovations you and I made," asserted Peridot. "This dwelling needs to be secure without being dangerous," wordlessly adding, _to tiny hands and smiling faces._

Jasper was seated on the couch in her usual spot, large fingers scratching her sleeved arm. Seeing Peridot's gaze, the Quartz gave an acknowledging head tilt and said simply, "Itches."

Before Peridot could remark further, Lapis dropped down from the rafters, startling her. "Hey Dot!" she said, ebulliently. "We got space-mounted doom cannons?"

Peridot adjusted her glasses to give her a moment to recover from her surprise. "Laz, the term 'space-mounted' is absurd bordering on the oxymoronic."

Lapis opened her mouth but Peridot preempted her. "No, I am not calling you moronic."

From the kitchen, still smoldering in places, Bismuth called out, "And please don't turn into an ox. The Pearl bird was bad enough."

Jasper snickered. And scratched.

"Why would I need to? We've already got a big, smelly-" started Lapis but Peridot once more interposed.

"Setting aside dubious nomenclature, we do indeed have access to the orbital array."

"Come on, Dot," teased Lapis. "We broke into the Ziggurat of all places, pulled a 'Brave Sir Robin' on an army of Pearls, you solo'd a frickin' Onyx, and now we have space-mounted fiery death guns. They're doom cannons and we've earned them."

"Doom cannons," agreed Jasper.

Peridot looked at Bismuth, who snickered. "You have to ask, Green?"

Peridot threw her hand-equivalents in the air in defeat. "Very well! The 'doom cannons' have been linked to the command center's communications. Though Lapis, you and I will need to do a survey of the orbitals to assess their condition."

Lapis paused, expression abstracted. "Oh, hang on. Better do a flight check first." First one wing emerged then the other. She did an experimental flap, then gave Peridot a smirk. "Yup, still got wings. I'll fly you up whenever, P-dot."

The green gem gave a contented smile. "Good. I hope to have certain preparations complete in the following days. I want to have concrete progress available when..." And her voice trailed off.

Lapis cocked her head to the side. "When?"

It was Jasper who answered. "Connie. It's time she came home."

Peridot nodded. "Homeworld's earthly foray; the fortification of the Beach House; the corruption recording; the addition of the orb- the doom cannons? These are all developments she must be informed of, with compelling progress and evidence to substantiate these claims."

"Also, we miss her," added the Quartz.

"That too," agreed Peridot. With that, she stepped neatly around Lapis and went to assist Bismuth in disarming the more problematic elements of the household.

"Hey, Blue?" asked the smith while they worked.

"Yeah?"

"This Sir Robin guy? He's a warrior or something?"

"The bravest of warriors. Very quick on his feet too." The smile was audible in Lapis' voice.

"Oh, neat," answered Bismuth.

Peridot, familiar with the source material being referenced, chose not to elucidate the smith and focused instead on her task.

"Yeah, any time he'd show up, there'd be much rejoicing," continued the blue gem.

"Yaaay," said Jasper in a flat drawl.

Peridot rose from her work to stare questioningly at the Quartz. Lapis was doing the same, mouth agape.

Jasper shrugged, scratching one arm. "It gets quoted a lot at the _Lutes and Loot_ table."

* * *

Connie woke and was stiff all over. The ache of an all-night reading binge was a familiar one, but that didn't actually make it any more pleasant.

That she'd slept in a sleeping bag after didn't help either.

Steven giving her a shoulder rub thirty seconds after rising? _That_ helped.

After the demands of waking were dealt with, she and Steven began bagging up the trash. It wouldn't do to leave old pizza boxes in her mom's secret archive.

"Did you find answers?" asked her boyfriend as they hauled the bags toward the entrance... as much as an impenetrable slab of super glass could be called an entrance. "About your mom and the war and stuff?" he added.

Connie set down the bag, not quite meeting Steven's eyes. "Yeah. Quite a lot in fact." She rubbed the back of her neck. "It's overwhelming actually. I think I'll need time to think on it. Are you going to read it too?"

Steven nodded, his springy hair mussed on one side from being buried inside a sleeping bag all night. "Heck yeah! We're doing this together. I'm just glad the journal wasn't, like, two pages long and then another clue to some other secret base."

Connie looked at him quizzically. "Why would it be?"

He shrugged. "It happens all the time in TV shows and games and comics: big reveals come out, like, one at a time instead of in a big lore avalanche."

Connie smiled. "I guess I don't have that kind of destiny then."

"Guess not," answered Steven, smiling back and looking adorable, sleeping bag hair or not.

Connie started to lean in when Steven said, tone apologetic if serious, "What about the others?"

She blinked, looking at his lips confused for a beat before his sentence caught up with her. "The gems." She rubbed her arm. "Yeah. It's going to be... awkward, but this is too big to keep secret."

He gave her that grin of his and it made her heart flutter. "Hooray! Communication! Oh! Do you think this will be more of a hugging reunion or a crying reunion?"

 _Probably more of a shouting reunion,_ said a snarky corner that Connie chose not to voice.

Thinking that far ahead reminded Connie of something. She stepped closer to her beau and looked him in the eyes. "By the way, thanks in advance for all the crazy stuff that's probably coming. Because if it's everything I expect it will be, you're going to be putting up with a lot, from them and from me."

He signed his response, hands moving under a genuine smile. “[You make my life magical.]”

Connie was momentarily stunned by his earnest, bordering on cheesy, support. This wasn’t the first time this had happened since they’d started dating but each time hit her just as hard as the last. It took her several seconds to recover and a few more before she could settle on a response.

"Destiny-" Connie began, extending her right hand in an invitation for a fist bump.

Steven met her fist with his own, and finished, "-Partners."

Connie's fist turned clockwise and she stuck his thumb out so that she was making a thumbs up that kind of looked like a lower-case 'd'. Steven, at the same time, rotated his fist counterclockwise and made a thumbs down, or a 'p'.

Then they swiveled their fists so Steven was the thumbs up and Connie, the thumbs down. They wiggled their thumbs at each other, made little hand explosions with their fingers, then both said at once, "Destiny Partners!"

Then, a new addition to the ritual she’d just invented, Connie leaned forward and pecked Steven on the lips.

This time it was Steven who was too stunned for words.

There the sound of someone clearing their throat. Pointedly.

Connie and Steven hopped back from one another, cheeks blazing.

Her dad eyed them, his expression... contained. "I've got everything that needs to go back ready for you to put in Wolf's, uh, pocket thingy, Connie." He ran a hand through his hair and grimaced, adding, "And I don't know about you two, but a shower sounds really nice right now."

 _It really did,_ agreed Connie, though she wasn't looking forward to the sleeping bag 'do of her own she'd no doubt be seeing in the mirror.

Outwardly she said, "Yeah, especially since there's one more important thing that needs to happen."

Her dad and Steven exchanged looks. "Oh?" asked the former.

"Yeah, before we break all of-" and she gestured to their surroundings, "-everything to the gems, Steven and I need to talk to Garnet. Mom had some questions and I'd really like to hear the answers."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter art was drawn by BurdenKing.
> 
> I don't know if that was the largest single update to Connie Swap or not, but it was a close second at least. It's fitting that this, as a double finale, one for Connie's and Peridot's respective adventures, is twice the length of a normal update. More, actually, with the epilogues. It was a lot of work getting this out, but my co-creators and I _really_ wanted this to be as impactful as possible, with reveals and action one after another to help drive home just how huge and overwhelming it was for Connie and Peridot both. I hope it came across as such and that you enjoyed the ride. And the lore.
> 
> So much lore.
> 
> Per our schedule, we'll be taking a week off between episodes, so you can expect some omake content to go up this Wednesday. However, join us Wednesday, February 27th for the start of **Episode 32: Come Together**
>
>>   
> It's been nearly a month since Connie moved out of the Beach House and has had as little to do with her guardians as possible. It's been nearly a month since Peridot despaired at what she saw as the inevitable and catastrophic return of Homeworld. But too much of importance has happened since then and things are different now. It's time to get some final answers and make some final preparations before reuniting... even if it is going to be super awkward.
> 
> Edit: Also, BINGO!  
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.
> 
> Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. [Come check it out.](https://discord.gg/RQMDdhr)
> 
> As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the [Connie Swap Tumblr](http://connieswap.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Keeping track of all the updates to Connie Swap can get a little difficult, can't it? It doesn't have to be! If you go to the [Connie Swap Series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/630527) page and click the " **Subscribe** " button then you will receive an email alert every time a new episode is posted or a new chapter is added to _ANY_ fic in Connie Swap.
> 
> One button. All the updates.


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